The Stanford Prison Experiment : Psychological Effect On Prisoners And Prison Guards

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

1). The guards themselves did not feel any guilt while enacting their behavior against the prisoners until after the experiment ended. The behavior of the guards may be related to the term of demand characteristics, which means that they acted the way they did just because they knew they were a part of a study. Zimbardo had told them how he wanted them to behave and they gave him just that. In a way the social desirability bias applies here because they were trying to conform to the “normal” idea of a prison guard.

Method of conduction- To conduct the experiment Zimbardo and his team chose university’s basement of psychology’s department and turned it to a mock prison. The surroundings of prison were made like the surroundings of prison in real life. Cells of prison were not big, walls and windows were barred. In this experiment Zimbardo acted as prison’s superintendent and he also played his duties of a researcher.

To ensure to have satisfactory results in his study, Zimbardo required some preconditions. One of which was the period of time for the experiment to be conducted. He believed that one-to-two weeks would be essential in “providing our research participants with sufficient time for them to become fully engaged in their experimentally assigned roles of either guards or prisoners. Having [our] participants live in that setting day and night, if prisoners, or work for long eight-hour shifts, if guards, would also allow sufficient time for situational norms to develop and patters of social interaction to emerge, change and become crystallized” (Zimbardo, 2013). Other preconditions he had were the mentalities of his volunteers; are they “normal,” healthy mentally and physically, are they without any prior history of conviction or drug usage?

The article on the Stanford Prison Experiment titled, A Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Simulated Prison and written by the Office of Naval Research, provides us with the overall information that deals with this controversial psychological study. The study was conducted by

The air is saturated with the smell of concrete and fear. The wailing of men echoes through the dark, unholy halls. A new face makes its way in. Only thing harder than holding back tears, are trying to not show fear. They will feed of it, off of me. It will not break me; I will not break. This is what to expect from an evil place where grown men can be molded; broken and reformed into a weaker being or into a strong piece of iron. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study put together by Phillip Zambardo to test the psychological effects of a prisoner and guard scenario in a mock prison setting. The experiment lasted seven to fourteen days and was comprised of twenty-four male students, who were picked at random to take part in the experiment. The role of guard and prisoner were also selected at random. The mock prisoners were subjugated to psychological abuse, harsh authoritarian rule by the guards, and intense living conditions to ensure maximum results were met. The experiment concluded early and a couple prisoners left due to an intense amount of stress brought on from the ordeal. Although the experiment was brief, it gave a great deal of insight into how environment can abruptly affect the psychological well-being of an individual. Zimbardo states, “Would those good people, put in that bad, evil place—would their goodness triumph?” (Cherry, 2006) Everyone has darkness within them and all it takes is a little push. Every person picked for this experiment was not

In 1973, in an attempt to understand the conformity to roles of guards and prisoners, Zimbardo launched a role-playing experiment that modeled prison life and reflected the environment of an American prison. The experiment was to see if prison guards are brutal and cruel because that’s their sadistic personality types that cause conflicts with the prisoners or if its due to the prison setting itself. In other words, there is a dispositional hypothesis that states that prison guards act the way they do because their personalities cause

In the documentary Quiet Rage, the story of Zimbardo’s prison experiment is retold. In the documentary, Zimbardo develops a hypothesis that the abusive behaviors in prison is either caused by pre-existing personality traits of the inmates and guards, or the prison environment itself is the cause. He tested his hypothesis by carefully selecting 24 physically healthy, and mentally stable, male college students to participate in a “mock prison” experiment. The basement of Stanford’s psychology department was used to recreate a prison environment, complete with cells, a prison yard, Warden and Superintendent’s offices, and solitary confinement. Half of the test subjects were randomly selected to be prisoner, and the other half to be guards. They were to be placed in the environment, and their roles, for two weeks, and to be carefully observed by Zimbardo who also acted as the prison superintendent. Zimbardo planned to observe the affects the prison environment had the subjects. Due to the extremely abusive characteristics guards developed, and the swift decline of

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.

The Stanford Prison experiment was conducted by Philip Zimbardo and his associates, David Jaffe, Craig Haney, Curtis Banks and Carlo Prescott. The experiment began in 1971 and was located in the Stanford Psychology department’s basement, converted into a makeshift simulated prison able to hold 24 male participants who were interviewed and randomly sorted into guard and prisoner roles (McLeod). The experiment was initially conducted to further understand “interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison” (Haney, Banks, Zimbardo) meaning the way individual persons react

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

I will begin by explaining why the Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted. Dr. Philip Zimbardo and his research team sought to examine the effect that social institutions and certain situations have on an individual’s behavior. According to the American Psychological Association, a situation-centered approach to studying human behavior, “focuses on factors external to the person” (American Psychological Association). More specifically, Zimbardo wanted to study how quickly an individual would conform to the role of prisoner or

The explanation that stands to back up the escalation of events that had spurred out of control was gathered to be an influence of roles which had etched into each individual that contributed; guards exerted a more genuine representation of assigned characteristics, even more so growing immune to their previously occupied mannerism. The Stanford Prison experiment had shaped individuals’ characteristics far beyond what had been expected. For instance, the limit to which Zimbardo had pushed the experience to be psychologically real, encouraged more than just the stereotypical role(s); prisoners had been humiliated, having been treated in a manner

This report on the Stanford Prison Experiment will define the ethical issues related to prisoner treatment and prison culture in a mock scenario created 1971. The findings of this study define the inclination towards corruption and riotous behavior within the overarching relationship between guard and the prisoners. In a short period of time,. The prisoners became hostile and sought to start a riot in order to free themselves from abuses of the prison guards. In some instances, the issue of role-playing limited to reality of the event, but the ethical issues related to issue of prison corruption became evident in the study. The Stanford Prison Experiment provided some important aspects on how good people can became violent lawbreakers within the orison system. In essence, the ethical and experimental conditions of the Stanford Prison experiment define the corrupting culture of prisons in American society during the early 1970s.

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