Psychological research has developed over many years of trials, criticism and changes. Today the American Psychological Association (APA) provides guidelines and rules for researchers to ensure research provides respect, beneficence, and justice for participants within the studies (txt). Based on previous research studies, ones that do not meet the current guidelines, some could be changed to meet current guidelines, while others would not be allowed as research studies in todays’ professional arena. Campbell, Sanderson, and Laverty performed at study use the drug Scoline and a tone to condition participants to respond to the tone in the same manner as initiated by the drug (txt). The drug induced paralysis and left the participant feeling they were going to die. This study precipitated severe emotional reactions in participants, disrespecting their value as humans and creating an emotional reaction that continue long passed the initial experiment. This experiment does not meet today’s research guidelines of the APA, nor would I perform this experiment with the same drug (txt). Even with informed consent, leaving participants fearful and death, and the …show more content…
Beneficence in research refers to commitment to reduce the risk of harm to participants while maximizing possible benefits to individuals” (txt). In the Stanford experiment participants were randomly selected to assume the role of prison guards or prisoners. The experiment was ended early due to the extreme violence of the participant prison guard and emotional risk to participant prisoners. Changes necessary in this experiment to ensure beneficence would include allowing participants to opt out of the experiment at any time and to be provided with extensive debriefing after completion or leaving the experiment. By allowing participants to opt out of the experiment, the risk to the participants would be
The Implications of the Stanford Prison Experiment In 1971 Dr Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment in the basement of Stanford University. This involved imprisoning nine volunteers in a mock up of Stanford prison, which was policed by nine guards (more volunteers). These guards had complete control over the prisoners. They could do anything to the prisoners, but use physical violence.
A local newspaper ad reached out for volunteers to participate in a Psychological study, created by Philip G. Zimbardo and his research team, which sounded interesting for many individuals. Was it the best option to follow through with it? Volunteers were given a promise of being paid fifteen dollars a day of the study. Multiple members probably considered this a once in a life time event that could result in quick, easy money. Many may have heard about the Stanford Prison Experiment, but may not have been aware of the scars that it left upon the participants. Taking a deeper look into the study and the impacted outcomes on individuals will be elaborated on (Stanford Prison Experiment).
Many ethical boundaries were crossed in the Stanford Prison Experiment. Abuse was not limited to physical, but also psychological (Burgemeester, 2011). In the movie The Stanford Prison Experiment, which depicts events that actually occurred, the guards played physiological tricks on the prisoners. The prisoners were lead to believe that they actually committed crimes and couldn’t leave the experiment. One main thing that the guards did to physically and psychologically harm the prisoners was to tamper with their sleeping schedules. They would wake the prisoners on the middle of the night and have them do exercises, and once they were done they were permitted to go back to sleep (Ratnesar, 2011). By doing this the prisoners lose sense of what
In this study Zimbardo chose 21 participants from a pool of 75, all male college students, screened prior for mental illness, and paid $15 per day. He then gave roles. One being a prisoner and the other being a prison guard, there were 3 guards per 8 hour shift, and 9 total prisoners. Shortly after the prisoners were arrested from their homes they were taken to the local police station, booked, processed, given proper prison attire and issued numbers for identification. Before the study, Zimbardo concocted a prison setting in the basement of a Stanford building. It was as authentic as possible to the barred doors and plain white walls. The guards were also given proper guard attire minus guns. Shortly after starting the experiment the guards and prisoners starting naturally assuming their roles, Zimbardo had intended on the experiment lasting a fortnight. Within 36 hours one prisoner had to be released due to erratic behavior. This may have stemmed from the sadistic nature the guards had adopted rather quickly, dehumanizing the prisoners through verbal, physical, and mental abuse. The prisoners also assumed their own roles rather efficiently as well. They started to rat on the other prisoners, told stories to each other about the guards, and placated the orders from the guards. After deindividuaiton occurred from the prisoners it was not long the experiment completely broke down ethically. Zimbardo, who watched through cameras in an observation type room (warden), had to put an end to the experiment long before then he intended
The Stanford Prison Experiment commenced in 1973 in pursuit of Zimbardo needed to study how if a person are given a certain role, will they change their whole personality in order to fit into that specific role that they were given to. Zambrano significantly believed that personality change was due to either dispositional, things that affect personal life and make them act differently. Or situational, when surrounded by prisoners, they can have the authority to do whatever they want without having to worry about the consequences. Furthermore, it created a group of twenty-four male participants, provided them their own social role. Twelve of them being a prisoners and the other twelve prison guards, all of which were in an examination to see if they will be able to handle the stress that can be caused based upon the experiment, as well as being analysis if their personality change due to the environment or their personal problems.
The day before the experiment, the researchers held and orientating session where they instructed the guards not to physically harm the prisoners but said them to create atmosphere in which the prisoners feel
Social psychology is an empirical science that studies how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. This field focuses on how individuals view and affect each other. Social psychology also produces the idea of construals which represent how a person perceives, comprehends or interprets the environment. Construals introduce the idea that people want to make themselves look good to others and they want to be seen as right. It is also said that the social setting in which people interact impacts behavior, which brings up the idea of behaviorism. Behaviorism is the idea that behavior is a function of the person and the environment.
To begin the experiment the Stanford Psychology department interviewed middle class, white males that were both physically and mentally healthy to pick 18 participants. It was decided who would play guards and who would be prisoners by the flip of a coin making nine guards and nine prisoners. The guards were taken in first to be told of what they could and could not do to the prisoners. The rules were guards weren’t allowed t o physically harm the prisoners and could only keep prisoners in “the hole” for a hour at a time. Given military like uniforms, whistles, and billy clubs the guards looked almost as if they worked in a real prison. As for the prisoners, real police surprised them at their homes and arrested them outside where others could see as if they were really criminals. They were then blindfolded and taken to the mock prison in the basement of a Stanford Psychology building that had been decorated to look like a prison where guards fingerprinted, deloused, and gave prisoners a number which they would be calle...
Would you go into prison to get paid? Do you believe that you will come out the same or become different? Do not answer that. The Stanford Prison Experiment was an experiment that was conduct in 1971 by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo. Seventy applicants answered the ad and were narrowed down to 24 college students, which half were assigned either to be guards or prisoners by random selection. Those 24 college students were picked out from the of 70 applicants by taking personality tests and given diagnostic interviews to remove any candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse. The experiment lasted six days but it was supposed to last two weeks, it was so traumatizing that it was cut short. Zimbardo was the lead researcher and also had a role in pretend prison. Zimbardo’s experiment was based on looking
When put into an authoritative position over others, is it possible to claim that with this new power individual(s) would be fair and ethical or could it be said that ones true colors would show? A group of researchers, headed by Stanford University psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo, designed and executed an unusual experiment that used a mock prison setting, with college students role-playing either as prisoners or guards to test the power of the social situation to determine psychological effects and behavior (1971). The experiment simulated a real life scenario of William Golding’s novel, “Lord of the Flies” showing a decay and failure of traditional rules and morals; distracting exactly how people should behave toward one another. This research, known more commonly now as the Stanford prison experiment, has become a classic demonstration of situational power to influence individualistic perspectives, ethics, and behavior. Later it is discovered that the results presented from the research became so extreme, instantaneous and unanticipated were the transformations of character in many of the subjects that this study, planned originally to last two-weeks, had to be discontinued by the sixth day. The results of this experiment were far more cataclysmic and startling than anyone involved could have imagined. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the discoveries from Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment and of Burrhus Frederic “B.F.” Skinner’s study regarding the importance of environment.
The Film “The Stanford prison experiment” demonstrates evil in 3 specific ways: evil in authority, the Lucifer effect and mob mentality. All 3 of these types of evil can be examined throughout the film through the relationship of the guards and the prisoners. Guards represent evil in authority and mob mentality by their uniformity which made them represent power and authority over the prisoners, Guards also show the Lucifer effect as they start very easy going but become very brute near the end. The prisoners show us the mob mentality type of evil by rebelling against the guards and then later on complying with them.
The “Stanford Prison Experiment” was a psychological experiment done in the year of 1973, which was lead by Philip Zimbardo. The experiment purpose was to study the psychology of prison life and the effects the environment induced on the people involved with it by using volunteers that would act out the roles of the people that would be in a prison, such as prisoners and guards. The experiment’s reshaped publication, originally from The New York Times Magazine, shows Zimbardo’s description of the experiment in an analytical manner. Zimbardo’s background as a psychologist gives him leverage over the audience’s emotions because his profession has allowed him to know what type of behaviors might evoke certain emotional responses that would make
To be honest, The Stanford Prison Experiment impacted and affected me the most because I truly hate any kind of abuse and suffering. As I watched the video and read the article about this experiment, it definitely shocked me in the way that how the experiment could change these twenty-four people’s behavior and attitude only a few days in oppressive and pressured situations. I honestly have sympathy for those prisoners. I feel the same way as Christina Maslach, who kept questioning for morality after she saw the prison, that this experiment was so terrible, and I feel so bad that there were no neither chance nor morality for these
Rothman, D.J. (1987). Ethics and human experimentation. New England Journal of Medicine, 317: 1195- 9.
The Stanford Prison Experiment of 1973 raises troubling questions about the ability of individuals to exist repressive or obedient roles, if the social setting requires these roles. Philip K. Zimbardo, professor of Psychology at Stanford University, began researching how prisoners and guards assume submissive and authoritarian roles. He set out to do this by placing advertisements in a local newspaper, stating that male college students would be needed for a study of prison life paying fifteen dollars per day for one to two days. Of the seventy-five responses, twenty-one were selected, half of them as "guards" (Zimbardo p. 364) and the other half as "prisoners." (Zimbardo p. 364) Philip Zimbardo's primary goal in this experiment was to find out the process when prisoners and guards become controlling and passive. He did this by setting up a mock prison in which all of the prisoners were assigned the same uniforms and cells, and used numbers instead of names. The guards were assigned uniforms and offices, somewhat similar to the prisoners except they were equipped with billy clubs, whistles, handcuffs, and keys, and had freedom. These conditions allowed a setting similar to prisons; this also allowed everyone to be stripped of identifying characteristics, therefore "equal." One of Philip Zimbardo's claims was the "process" of becoming a prisoner. In this process, all of the applicants were arrested, read their rights, and charged with a felony. After they were taken down to the station to be fingerprinted, each prisoner was left isolated to wonder what he did. After a while, he was blindfolded and transported to the "Stanford County Prison." Here, he was stripped naked, skin-searched, d...