Costuming In Milgrams And Phillip Zimbardo's Experiments

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There has been some social psychology experiments that have taken place in the past that have definitely been cruel that have gone too far. Stanley Milgram’s and Phillip Zimbardo’s experiments are two perfect examples. Costuming in Milgram’s and Zimbardo’s texts, works together to define the participants’ roles and actually dictate their behavior. The participants in Milgram’s and Zimbardo’s experiments were assigned specific roles with specific costumes. Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University conducted an experiment to study the conflict between obedience and authority on each of the participants’ roles. The aim of this experiment was to see how far people, in this case the teachers would go in obeying a demand even if it meant …show more content…

Zimbardo and his team members “wanted to see the psychological effects were of becoming a prisoner or prison guard” (Zimbardo ¶4). They tested this by stimulating a prison and observed the effects of all the people in the prison. The prisoners’ uniforms consisted of a dress uniform with no underclothes. They were also told to cover their hair with a stocking cap that is especially for the use of women and the use of rubber sandals. Real prisoners in real prisons are definitely treated bad, humiliated and feel emasculated. And since Zimbardo was stimulating a prison, he made them feel emasculated by what they were wearing. The power the clothes the prisoners wore during this experiment had an extremely effect since it made them disempower through emasculation causing vulnerability. Their behavior changed by acting and walking like women do. Staying in that prison made them feel totally different men when they entered because while they were in prison, their prison ID number made them feel like they were just a number instead of a human being with a …show more content…

It showed the readers how easy it is to adapt to a new role just on what the person is wearing. I do not agree how Milgram decided to prove his thesis on obedience by being pressured by the authority by shocking people and I also do not agree how Zimbardo decided to dress the guards but especially the prisoners in this experiment and how it got out of hand. However, their experiments showed how costuming can impact on a person by separating authority and the person who obeys the

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