Zimbardo 's Standford 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 Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment has to be one of the cruelest and disturbing experiments I have witnessed since the Milgram experiment. This experiment was pushed far beyond its means and went extremely too far. I know experiments in 1971 weren’t as thorough and strategic as today's but I know today's rules and regulations never allow cruel and unusual punish just to test out one’s theory’s. I don’t believe criminologists should be permitted to conduct replications of Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment. I also know that the ACJS and other organizations who set the rules and guidelines for experiments would not promote or condone an experiment that is dangerous and is unethical such as Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment. There were no boundaries or a level

1.What are the effects of living in an environment with no clocks, no view of the outside world, and minimal sensory stimulation?

The experimental study that I chose to write about is the Stanford Prison Experiment, which was run by Phillip Zimbardo. More than seventy applicants answered an ad looking for volunteers to participate in a study that tested the physiological effects of prison life. The volunteers were all given interviews and personality tests. The study was left with twenty-four male college students. For the experiment, eighteen volunteers took part, with the other volunteers being on call. The volunteers were then divided into two groups, guards and prisoners, randomly assigned by coin flips. The experiment began on August 14th, 1971 in the basement of Stanford’s psychology building. To create the prison cells for the prisoners, the doors were taken

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.

Social psychologist, Philip Zimbardo, has lead one of the most infamous experiments in the modern history with the Stanford Prison Experiment. The immense popularity of the experimental research on situational power, although having cultivated great recognition, has overshadowed the multiple contributions and accomplishments that Zimbardo continues to assume in his lifetime. Many of Zimbardo’s recognitions have been brought upon due to the Stanford Prison Experiment, yet in this paper will extensively examine Zimbardo’s psychological career from the beginning to the current date to recognize his notable influence in the field of Psychology, specifically the field of Social Psychology. This brief review of Zimbardo’s lengthy career will include various facts and personal accounts of Zimbardo’s regarding his life and work. Zimbardo’s lifetime of work has mainly focused and researched the multiple flaws of human’s beings, and it’s through his findings that society is truly able to progress forward positively. Zimbardo’s long career exemplifies that of an unrestricted devotion; he has and still works to better society through its various flaws, making him undoubtably impactful.

As dozens of participants seen and experience some of the abuse and its effects and said nothing as Zimbardo stated (Zimbardo, p. 130). If one of his colleagues hadn’t been dropped by and saw what was happening the experiment would have continued and many people would have lost their mind (Zimbardo, p. 131). The experiments consist of 24 participants, the volunteers were randomly delegated to play the role of prisoner or guard in a setting made to take a sense of the psychology of imprisonment. Zimbardo infused dramatic realism in the study. The “prisoners” were given identity numbers, stripped naked and saturated. While the guards had to wear that looks similar to a prison guard. (Zimbardo, p. 129). Ethics committees at universities have put an end to these types of an experiment for the reason of potential danger to participants (Zimbardo, p.

Philip Zimbardo, who categorizes himself as “good” fell victim to the situation of the “Stanford Prisons Experiment” (SPE). Even though it was a mock prison environment, Zimbardo fell heavily invested in his role as superintendent and lead investigator of the SPE, whose main concern is to make sure the SPE continues running, led him to accept that his actions were normal. Which in turn allowed him to ignore his moral conscience; allowing for the suffering from the participants surrounding the SPE. When Zimbardo came to the decision to end the program, disconnecting from his both his roles he was able to realize that he was not in control, that the situation had controlled his logic affecting his actions. Zimbardo states, “The negative

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 guards began to use physical punishment. They also would force the inmates to sleep without a mattress or sleep naked. The inmates were in cells built for three people. They had to share a bucket for excretion and defecating. The guards refused to dump the buckets causing the sanitation to be very poor. At one point in the experiment Zimbardo heard the release prisoner was going to help the others escape he moved the prison, but he never tried to help them escape. When Christina Maslach, Zimbardo’s future wife, said that she believe the experiment was not moral he discontinued his research on the sixth day. The results show obedience to authority and behavioral

The Zimbardo prison experiment was a study of human responses to captivity, dehumanization and its effects on the behavior on authority figures and inmates in prison situations. Conducted in 1971 the experiment was led by Phlilip Zimbardo. Volunteer College students played the roles of both guards and prisoners living in a simulated prison setting in the basement of the Stanford psychology building.

This paper serves to summarize The Zimbardo Prison Experiment, better known as The Stanford Prison Experiment which was conducted by Phillip Zimbardo in 1971 at Stanford University. The purpose of the study was to conduct research in order to better understand the psychological components of human aggression and submission to include conformity and obedience in a prison environment with a select group of subjects playing roles as either prison guards or inmates, however, I should note, according to McLeod, S. (2016), The Navy’s intent or purpose for the experiment was to better understand how to train members of the armed forces on how to cope with stress associated with captivity as opposed to making American Prison systems more humane. Another interesting point of note is that Zimbardo conducted this experiment shortly after World War II, and the Vietnam War where concern was raised as to some of the atrocities carried out in those wars where “ordinary” people conducted heinous acts per instruction from so-called authoritative figures. Experiments with similar objectives were carried out by Stanley Milgram and others. (Jones, A. D., & Milgram, S. 1974)

The Zimbardo prison experiment was set up to investigate the problem of what the psychological effects for normal people result from being a guard or inmate, and in a broader sense are normal people capable of being ‘evil.’ The research question being asked was, “How would normal people react to being in a simulated prison environment? In Zimbardo’s own words, "Suppose you had only kids who were normally healthy, psychologically and physically, and they knew they would be going into a prison-like environment and that some of their civil rights would be sacrificed. Would those good people, (when) put in that bad, evil place (have) their goodness triumph?"

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