Essay: The Stanford Prison Experiment

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During the Summer of 1971, an experiment was conducted by Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. This experiment is known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. It put students in the roles of either the prisoner or the guard which then measured how these students acted in their assigned characters. It was a simulation of how prison life would be during that time. As the experiment continued, there was an increase in the level of aggression from the prisoners which caused more dominance by the guards. The main research question in this experiment was, what happens when you put good people into an evil place? Does humankind win over evil, or does evil succeed? The findings showed that young men suffered, both verbally and physically. The prisoners …show more content…

An excellent example of this is Adolf Hitler and his dictatorship of Germany that led to the Holocaust. While many people automatically assume Hitler has been the face of evil, there is some good in him. Hitler decided to create a blitzkrieg economy, which is purposely mobilizing the economy at a low level to be able to reduce stress caused by war amongst the German citizens (Overy, 1982). Through his economy, he wanted the German people to not have to worry about the struggles of war. Hitler was looking out for his people. However, he seemed to care for them so much that he came up with an idea of killing off people who weren’t a part of his group, mainly the Jews. This was when Hitler’s evil started to shine through, during the time of the Holocaust. The individuals who were put into gas chambers to die were in a part of dehumanizing experiences; some people didn’t even want to acknowledge how bad the Holocaust was (Ayalon et al., 2007). They were taken from their homes without permission, stripped of their families, and killed in gas chambers at different concentration camps. The person whom was overseeing this operation was none other than Adolf Hitler. A finding from the Stanford Prison Experiment was that people will act irrational when authorized to do so (Lankford, 2009). This can be relevant to Hitler’s Nazi followers when they were demanded to complete a task. Undoubtedly, evil succeeded over good in this situation. Killing six million individuals just because you want a better country is unjustifiable. It is also

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