The Stanford Prison Experiment At Stanford University

In Maria Konnikova’s “The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment” she reveals what she believes to be the reality of sociologist Philip Zimbardo’s controversial study: its participants were not “regular” people.

“The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip G. Zimbardo was written to explain the results of the Stanford prison experiment. Zimbardo while trying to gain support for his conclusions of the experiment, demonstrated many errors in his writing, and in his own experiment. The errors that Zimbardo commits call into question the validity of his argument, and the experiment. The goal explained by Zimbardo was “to understand more about the process by such people called “prisoners” lose their liberty, civil rights, independence, and privacy, while those called “guards” gain social power by accepting the responsibility for controlling and managing the lives of their dependent charges” (Zimbardo 733).

A review on the Stanford Prison Experiment - 1) Philip Zimbardo wanted to demonstrate how the environment can change people. To this end, he launched a study called The Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo was trying to show what happened when a human being was stripped of his individuality and dignity and his life was completely controlled. He also wanted to show the dehumanization and the collapse of the social and moral values that could happen to the guards immersed in that situation. The duration of this experiment was initially planned to last two weeks.

In 1971 Philip Zimbardo and his collages Craig Haney, Curtis Banks, David Jaffe, and ex-convict consultant, Carlo Prescott formulated a social experiment that addressed the underlying and basic physical mechanisms of human aggression (Henry, Banks, and Zimbardo, 1973). The experiment was planned to last two weeks and consist of male college students. The study was based upon the dynamic of the authority of prison guards and submissive behavior of the prisons inmates. Therefore, the experiment required for a mock prison to be built.

Dr Philip Zimbardo created the Stanford prison experiment in 1971, the aim of this experiment was to find out the psychological effects of prison life, and to what extent can moral people be seduced to act immorally. The study consisted of 24 students selected out of 75, the roles of these 24 men were randomly assigned, 12 to play prison guards and 12 to play prisoners. The prison set up was built inside the Stanford’s psychological department, doors where taken of laboratory rooms and replaced with steel bars in order to create cells. At the end of the corridor was the small opening which became the solitary confinement for the ‘bad prisoners’. Throughout the prison there were no windows or clocks to judge the passage in time, which resulted in time distorting experiences. After only a few hours, the participants adapted to their roles well beyond expectations, the officers starting

The Stanford Prison Experiment sought to recreate a prison experience to study behaviors of prisoners and guards. The authors were seeking answers to the question of dispositional hypothesis which states “that the state of the social institution of prison is due to the “nature” of the people who administer it, or the “nature” of the people who populate it, or both” (A Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Stimulated Prison, 1971, pg. 2). In other words, they were studying whether the prisoners and guards behaviors changed due to their personalities or was it the prison environment that caused these changes. The authors considered the recidivism rate that was 75 percent at the time, conditions in prisons, and the belief that prisons

In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues created the experiment known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo wanted to investigate further into human behavior, so he created this experiment that looked at the impact of taking the role of a prisoner or prison guard. These researchers examined how the participants would react when placed in an institutionalized prison environment. They set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University’s psychology building. Twenty four undergraduate students were selected to play the roles of both prisoners and guards. These students were chosen because they were emotional, physically, and mentally stable. Though the experiment was expected to last two weeks, it only lasted six days after the researchers and participants became aware of the harm that was being done.

Zimbardo and his colleagues conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment in an attempt to psychologically understand what it means to be a prisoner and a prison guard. They screened 70 male students at Stanford and settled on around two dozen individuals who they deemed emotionally and physically healthy to participate in the study and were all members of the middle class community. They then arbitrarily assigned the volunteers to be either a prison guard or a prisoner. In order to make the experiment as lifelike as possible, Zimbardo asked police officers to actually arrest the prisoners at their homes, register as criminals as the Palo Alto police station, blindfold them,

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study conducted by Phillip Zimbardo to better understand how people will react if put into an evil setting, and if we as humans, would allow it to consume us, or overcome it with our moral values and obligations. 24 participants were selected to participate out of the 70 volunteers. Before the experiment began, Zimbardo randomly selected students, either as “Prison Guards” or “Prisoners”. Zimbardo expected it to be a boring study that would last one to two weeks, but soon realized he would need to end the experiment within six days.

Imagine waking up, reading the local Sunday newspaper, and coming across an advertisement that offered fifteen dollars a day to any male college student that was willing to participate in a study at Stanford University for three weeks (Dunning). Close to seventy broke college boys hustled their way to Stanford for an interview with the professor who was leading the experiment, Philip Zimbardo. An interview was conducted to determine whether the boys were healthy, mentally and physically. Only twenty-four of the seventy men were chosen though, only to be test subjects in a study that would look further into the psychological effects of prison life. Making the ones who weren't fit for the study, essentially lucky (Zimbardo).

In 1971 the professor of psychology at Stanford conducted with the help of a group of students, the now well known, and sometimes even defined as infamous; the Stanford Prison Experiment. Professor’s Zimbardo’s experiment have given us a unique insight into human psyche; namely, how social roles can influence our behavior. At one point the experiment apparently got out of control, but the results are non the less astounding; it gives us reasons to believe, that when an individual is provided with legitimizing ideology, or institutional support, we might witness degeneration and breakdown of established morals and social rules. The experiment has as many proponents, as it has opponents; and there is no doubt, that it had some negative impact

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by a research group led by Dr. Philip Zimbardo using Stanford students during August 14 through the 20th of 1971. Dr. Zimbardo wanted to see how people reacted when they are either put in captivity or in charge of others. The study was funded by the US Office of Naval Research and grew interest to both the US Navy and the Marine Corps for an investigation to the purpose of conflict among military guards and prisoners. In the study, 24 male students were selected out of 75 applicants to take on randomly assigned roles. One of the surprises of the study was how participants quickly adapted to roles well beyond expectations. After the first eight hours, the experiment turned to be a joke and nobody was taking it seriously but then prisoners

In 1971 Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) in the basement of Stanford University as a mock prison. Zimbardo’s aim was to examine the effect of roles, to see what happens when you put good people in an evil place and to see how this effects tyranny. He needed participants to be either ‘prisoners’ or ‘guards’ and recruited them through an advertisement, 75 male college students responded and 24 healthy males were chosen and were randomly allocated roles. Zimbardo wanted to encourage deindividuation by giving participants different uniforms and different living conditions (the guards had luxuries and the prisoners were living as real prisoners). The guards quickly began acting authoritarian, being aggressive towards the prisoners and giving them punishments causing physical and emotional breakdowns. Zimbardo’s intention was for his study to last for 2 weeks, however, it

The Stanford Prison Experiment was designed to allow 24 participants (college students) to be arrested in a mock police state scenario without any charges being brought against them. The participants were hooded and put into a prison cellblock with other mock prisoners. The purpose of the experiment was to see how non-criminals would be affected by the prison culture and the oversight of prison guards. Philip G. Zimbardo (2004)

This experiment has been known for a while to be one of the most horrifying experiments. It was ranked the top 5 most horrifying experiments. The experiment was conducted at Stanford University on August 14-20, 1971, by a group of researchers led by a psychology professor, Phillip Zimbardo. Phillip Zimbardo and his researchers/observers have planned make an experiment to see how they react in their state. The study was also helped by the government from the United States Office of Naval Research to study about the antisocial behaviors.The purpose of the whole experiment was to understand the development of norms (something that is usual, typical, or standard) and their social expectations in a control prison surrounding or environment. The