Philip Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment

Question 1

In 2003, numbers of United States soldiers abused and humiliated Iraqi individuals held at Abu Ghraib prison. Such incident parallels to Phillip Zimbado’s Stanford Prison Experiment in the 70’s where “guards” abused the “prisoners”.

Phillip Zimbardo, who was the principal investigator of the Stanford Prison Experiment, randomly selected young, male college students to participate in his study. The goal of the experiment was that “Zimbardo sought to demonstrate that it was not individuals but the prison situation itself, with its institutionalized power differentials, which generated tension and discord” (Bottoms, 2014, p. 165). The students that volunteered to be a part of his test had gone through numerous interviews and tests

The guards in both situations are left with the instruction to watch over the prisoners. However, in both situations, they take matters into their own hands by abusing them. Like Philip Zimbardo said, “Certain social settings can transform intelligent young men into perpetrators of psychological abuse” (Alkadry & Witt, 2009, p.139).

All in all, the two situations showed that those who hold some slight bit of power take it and run with it. But, the abuse at Abu Ghraib went beyond humiliation and resulted in severe violence, injuries and rape. At Abu Ghraib, the guards were not college students whose power went to their head. They were United States soldiers who were being led by veteran prison guards.

Question 2 The incidents at Abu Ghraib and in the Stanford Prison Experiment both support the statement “good people in ‘evil places’ will display evil qualities”.

For Zimbardo’s experiment, he “selected only those judged to be emotionally stable, physically healthy, mature, law‐abiding citizens” (“The mind is a formidable jailer”, 1973).

Question 3 The Stanford Prison Experiment can show parallels to different events we either see or have seen in our society. One historical event that the SPE can explain is the