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The Stanford Prison Experiment “Our young research participants were not the proverbial “Bad Apples” in an otherwise good barrel. Rather, out experimental design ensured that they were initially good apples and were corrupted by the insidious power of the bad barrel, this prison (229).” Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect, created an experiment of twenty-four college age men. He randomly assigned these ordinary, educated, young men with a role as either Guard or Prisoner. He questions whether or not good people will do bad things if they are given the opportunity. After the experiment is complete, he begins to compare the situations that occurred in the Stanford Prison Experiment with real life situations in Abu Giraib and Guantanamo Bay Prison. He points out many similarities that parallel the Stanford Prison Experiment. In every situation depicted, there is a good person in a seemingly “bad barrel” – or a bad situation that brings bad actions out of a good person. Evil Actions in the SPE …show more content…
Every participant came from a relatively good background, with a college education, a clean legal record, and strong community ties because Zimbardo hypothesized that a good person could perform evil acts if they were given the opportunity. In the Stanford Prison experiment, Zimbardo’s hypothesis was reflected very clearly. The guards did absolutely terrible things to the prisoners, but in the end, the guards were good people, the situation stimulated bad ideas and evil
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.
Twenty-four average men were entered into a fake prison setting, twelve of which who had been given the role of prisoner and twelve with the role of guard. Throughout the course of the experiment we see the environment effect negatively on the actions of the group of guards, clearly demonstrating that situational forces can force a person to cross the line between good and evil. We see this heavily embodied in the guard Dave Eshelman AKA ‘John Wayne’ – nicknamed by the prisoners in the study – the most brutal guard of them all, the one who demonstrated all the findings on the influence of power and authority and human behaviour. “I was kind of running my own experiment in there, by saying, “How far can I push these things and how much abuse will these people take before they say, ‘knock it off?'” But the other guards didn’t stop me.
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
Phillip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford experiment where 24 physiologically and physically healthy males were randomly selected where half would be prisoners and the other half prisoner guards. To make the experiments as real as possible, they had the prisoner participants arrested at their homes. The experiment took place in the basement of the Stanford University into a temporary made prison.
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.
How would you act if you were locked up in a concentration camp and the guards made you suffer? If I were in there, I would listen to the guards because I want less suffered. In addition, I would not try to stand out in the crowed to receive punishment by the guards. In the Movie, The Stanford Prison Experiment, students were split to be two group, guards and prisoner. In the oppressive environment and authority to the guards, the guards were out of control, and they kept on punish prisoner until they broke down. The prisoners were treated as less than human, and they won’t get what they need. Furthermore, these guards will act more aggressive every day to try to force the prisoner to conform. In the film The Stanford Prisoner Experiment, the guards become immoral because they got
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...
Philip Zimbardo (1971) conducted an experiment that will be remembered for its shocking realization of how much a situation can control our personality. Nice people can turn into horrible people, and psychologically healthy people can lash out and become unstable. Even though Zimbardo’s experiment (1971) was cut short, it showed the world that evil places can take a huge toll on otherwise genuinely good people.
In Abu Ghraib, the prisoners’ faces were covered with hoods and the prison was covered up with walls that made the prison an island where morality was no longer there due to the three traits that the soldier went through. To understand how individuals can kill innocent children, women, men, and elders, Philip G. Zimbardo did The Stanford prison experiment. In the book, Zimbardo highlighted three psychological truths. The first is that the world is full of both evil and good, the barrier between the two is absorbent, and angels and devils can switch.
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.
This example of Lucifer turning into Satan digresses into a less dramatic investigation of ordinary people converting into miscreant of evil. The book provides a detailed chronology of the transformations in human character that took place during an experiment designed by Zimbardo himself, which called for randomly selected healthy, normal, and intelligent college students to play roles of prisoner or guard in a monitored and projected study called the Stanford Prison Experiment. This experiment helps make sense of corporate malfeasance of “administrative evil”, or authoritative figures abusing their power to accentuate and express evil by means of egocentrism. This two week-long study was terminated after only six days because of the extreme stress and emotional breakdowns several of the prisoners experienced. These guards were abusing their power by forcing the prisoners to do humiliating tasks, stripping them naked, and sexually degrading them. People are not born evil; good and bad behaviors are either engaged or disengaged depending on the situation people find themselves
In the book “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” allows readers to join the author, Phil Zimbardo, on a journey. Zimbardo compares his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment to the prison abuses in Abu Ghraib in 2003. In the first chapter, Zimbardo poses the question, “Am I capable of being evil?” This question presents opportunity for experimentation in which Zimbardo takes full initiative. To better dissect the experiment, Zimbardo created three tiered analytical categories: The Person, The Situation, and The System. These categories break down the main components of the experiment, and individualize the factors that contributed to the “evilness” of the subjects. The title of the book and name of the theory, The Lucifer Effect, refers to the story from the Bible of the extreme transformation of Lucifer from God’s favorite angel to what is now know as the Devil. The book is a presentation of the transformation from a good person to a bad person; the journey
Zimbardo shows logos (logic and order) in his studies by proving that if a bad situation can bring out the worst in people, it can also bring out the best. He illustrates also logos through specifics and statistics he gives through his studies. Zimbardo creates ethos (capability) by explaining how a situation affects a person. In the Stanford Prison Experiment it was concluded that people will readily conform to social roles that they are expected to play, especially if the roles are as strongly stereotyped as with the prison guard. The “prison” environment was an important factor in creating the guards’ brutal behavior (none of the students who acted as guards showed sadistic tendencies before the study.) Therefore the findings supported the situation explanation of behavior rather than the dispositional on. These findings have also been applied to the incident of prisoner abuse in Abu
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 one another. 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.