The Stanford Prison Experiment

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” 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).

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a clear example of how humans can adapt to specific social roles and behave differently under the pressure of control. The experiment illustrated the concepts of deviance and social control through participants behavior. Although the prisoners were not really prisoners, they believed that they were. The behavior of the prisoners began to morph along with the experiment. By day two, the prisoners were showing deviance by barricading themselves inside their cells. The environment and treatment of the prisoners were likely causes of the disobedience. Similarly, the guards showed signs of social control throughout the experiment. Guards were able to show control over the prisoners through various actions, such

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 the summer of 1971 at Stanford University psychologist Phillip Zimbardo conducted a behavioral experiment meant to simulate a prison. This experiment was supposed to study the behaviors both guards and prisoners go through by using student volunteers to play the parts. This experiment, conducted in the basement of a Stanford University building, began to take on a life of its own and has since gone down in infamy. This paper will look into the person responsible for this experiment, how it was conducted and the outcome of the infamous study.

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 is known as one of the most infamous social experiments in the study of psychology. Conducted by Stanford professor Phillip G. Zimbardo, the experiment was a prison simulation using male college students that volunteered. Zimbardo’s experiment was designed to strip prisoners of their individuality and freedom and put them in a place where they were powerless against people with whom they would be equal in the outside world (Shuttleworth, Martyn). The intent of his experiment was to answer his questions about the conflict and morality between prisoners and guards. Professor Zimbardo pondered these questions after being an expert witness in a trial regarding the abuses of Abu Ghraib, an american prison in Iraq (Shuttleworth,

The Stanford Prison Experiment was one of the most criticized human nature experiments in history. In the experiment Dr. Zimbardo wanted to see if people would think for themselves, or fall into predefined roles that they were given. Before the experiment took place, Dr. Zimbardo picked 24 male subjects he thought were mentally and emotionally stable. He also built a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University. During this process all the subjects were divided in half making 12 guards and the other 12 prisoners. To help define the roles even further he dressed the guards in police type uniforms with wooden clubs. The individuals that were used as the prisoners were stripped searched and given smocks as their uniforms. Once the experiment started everyone seemed to fall right into the roles they were given. Even Dr. Zimbardo fell into his role as the prison

Philip Zimbardo was born on March 23, 1938, in New York City. He studied at Brooklyn College and graduated in 1954 with majors in sociology, anthropology, and psychology(Maslach). Human behavior was always a mystery to Philip Zimbardo, and he pursued these fields with hopes of one day understanding it. In 1968, Zimbardo accepted a job at Stanford University as a professor of psychology. He spent most of his career researching how and why people transform in certain situations so that they behave in unexpected ways. In 1970, Zimbardo started designing an experiment to determine what the result would be when one group of people were given authority over another group of less powerful, dependent people. This would later be known as the Stanford Prison Experiment (Maslach).

=“The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces” (Zimbardo). In August of 1971, psychology professor Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford prison experiment, which was funded by the U.S military to investigate the causes of dissension between military guards and prisoners. As the experiment commenced participants, college students, adapted to their roles in the prison far beyond the expectations of Zimbardo. Authoritarian measures were enforced harshly to those who were the prisoners, with some even going as far as to subject prisoners to psychological torture. On the other hand, while the guards acted violently and aggressively, many of the prisoners accepted

In 2010, a movie was released called “The Experiment”. I was sixteen years old and this movie became the start of my obsession with the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. The movie was very loosely based on the actual experiment and hardly had any true facts at all. But nonetheless, I found myself so intrigued. The original experiment was conducted by Philip Zimbardo to study imprisonment, the psychology of authority, and the abuse of power.

However, complying with these basic ethical research standards does not necessarily categorize the experiment as an ethical one. Perhaps it was the intentional dehumanization of the prisoners from the very beginning. Those designated as prisoners were arrested in their everyday lives, with no prior knowledge of how they would be ushered into the experiment. They were fingerprinted, booked,

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)

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

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