Standford Prison Study Essay

The participants adapted to their roles well beyond Zimbardo 's expectations, as the guards enforced the measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to prevent it. The experiment even

In the documentary Quiet Rage, the story of Zimbardo’s prison experiment is retold. In the documentary, Zimbardo develops a hypothesis that the abusive behaviors in prison is either caused by pre-existing personality traits of the inmates and guards, or the prison environment itself is the cause. He tested his hypothesis by carefully selecting 24 physically healthy, and mentally stable, male college students to participate in a “mock prison” experiment. The basement of Stanford’s psychology department was used to recreate a prison environment, complete with cells, a prison yard, Warden and Superintendent’s offices, and solitary confinement. Half of the test subjects were randomly selected to be prisoner, and the other half to be guards. They were to be placed in the environment, and their roles, for two weeks, and to be carefully observed by Zimbardo who also acted as the prison superintendent. Zimbardo planned to observe the affects the prison environment had the subjects. Due to the extremely abusive characteristics guards developed, and the swift decline of

The prisoners dealt with a great deal of suffering and torment. Meanwhile, the guards showed no compassion towards the prisoners. When the students first signed up they were not specifically told what the experiment entailed or that they were going to be physically abused. Zimbardo gave himself the role of being the prison warden and in charge of the experiment which led to him blurring the lines of reality. He later realized that he had crossed the line by putting the prisoners through mental and physical abuse. The experiment crossed a line when the guards began harming the prisoners and Zimbargo not setting boundaries with what the guards were allowed to do. This all led to the experiment not lasting for two weeks as planned. Ethical guidelines were established after the study to ensure the safety of

The psychology professor, Philip Zimbardo, from Stanford University began to test how imprisonment affects different people in August 1971. He chose twenty four out of seventy five male students. These students were the most psychologically and physically stable. Zimbardo built a mock prison in the basement of the university. Within the twenty four chosen students some were randomly selected to be guards. The guards only had to pretend for eight hours a day, and then got to return to their normal lives. The prisoners had to stay in the prison all day for seven to fourteen days.

The Zimbardo prison experiment was a study of human responses to captivity, dehumanization and its effects on the behavior on authority figures and inmates in prison situations. Conducted in 1971 the experiment was led by Phlilip Zimbardo. Volunteer College students played the roles of both guards and prisoners living in a simulated prison setting in the basement of the Stanford psychology building.

Zimbardo in 1973 created an experiment designed to investigate how readily people would adopt a new role and exercise the power attached to that role. Zimbardo recruited 25 male students to participate in a two week study of prison life. They were randomly assigned to the role of a prisoner or a guard. On arrival the prisoners were stripped down and given prison smocks with a number attached. From then on they were referred to by there number only.

Obedience and Standford Prison Experiment Research. The Stanley Milgrim and the Standford Prison experiments both examine the psychological effects of people and how, when given roles, they play those roles. (DeAngelis, 2022) The purpose of The Stanly Milgrim experiment was to see how willing participants were to obey authority even when it went against their better judgement. (Main, 2023)

In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues created the experiment known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo wanted to investigate further into human behavior, so he created this experiment that looked at the impact of taking the role of a prisoner or prison guard. These researchers examined how the participants would react when placed in an institutionalized prison environment. They set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University’s psychology building. Twenty four undergraduate students were selected to play the roles of both prisoners and guards. These students were chosen because they were emotional, physically, and mentally stable. Though the experiment was expected to last two weeks, it only lasted six days after the researchers and participants became aware of the harm that was being done.

Zimbardo decided to run an experiment where he would turn a basement under the Stanford campus into a mock prison where he would interview several participants where they would randomly get assigned either guard, or prisoner. Zimbardo aimed to see how everyone pertained the roles they were placed in. Interviewing 75 potential participants, Zimbardo only chose 24 male college students which they received payments of $15/day. They had two reserves in which were the back-ups just in case any of them wanted to drop out. The prison simulation was kept as real as possible. The participants were “arrested” taken to the police station booked, finger printed, and photographed. Then being blindfolded they were taken back to the campus in the basement where Zimbardo created the mock prison with real barred doors and windows along with bare walls with small cells. Once the “prisoners” arrived, they were stripped naked and given the prison clothes and bedding. The prisoners had their own number which they were only referred to. They wore just a smock with no clothes under along with a nylon cap and a chain around their ankle. Guards were given a stereotypical khaki outfit with whistles, handcuffs, and mirrored glasses working 8 hour shifts a day with three people working each shift. Physical violence was not permitted to the guards. Observing the behaviors of the guards and prisoners, Zimbardo realized how everyone was

Philip (2009) to try and see what was being said about prison treatment was true, this was called the Stanford prison experiment. This experiment only lasted 6 days due to the circumstances versus 6 weeks. Zimbardo had to find out whether the prisons were brutal due to the guards or due to the environment. It was clear that the role of the guards was the issue and not the environment. This was discovered when a sample was chosen from the population. Each induvial was set up to be a guard or a prisoner at random. In this study researchers got see the unfortunate power of social situations. Once prisoner and guard roles were assigned each group were told that they were being watched by the researcher and his colleagues, the guards were to not hit the prisoners, and debriefed about the experiment. Although all this was told the guards took situations into their own hands and the power took over. The guards began simply viewing them as prisoners and the prisoners began to fear the guards. It is important to note the researcher did not intervene but continued to observe when the hitting was taking place. This is particularly important because not only are the guards fitting the rod but the researcher is at fault for the fundamental attribution error but viewing the situation for what it

In psychology, there are lots of controversial experiments that have been done and are still talked about today. The experiment that sticks out for me is Zimbardo’s Prison study, it catches my eye for more than one reason. In this study, Philip Zimbardo gathered up a bunch of students to play the roles of prisoners and guards. Zimbardo wanted to investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role played situation that would be equivalent to prison life. (McLeod 1) During this experiment that lasted six days, Zimbardo found out that the guards treated the prisoners horribly (McLeod 1) This turned the tables and Zimbardo became interested in finding out if the brutality of the guards were due to their malicious personalities or if it had more to do with the environment of being in a prison. One form of behavior that Zimbardo noticed was that the prisoners did not respect the authority of the guards which resulted in the guards being aggressive towards the prisoners (McLeod 1).

To ensure to have satisfactory results in his study, Zimbardo required some preconditions. One of which was the period of time for the experiment to be conducted. He believed that one-to-two weeks would be essential in “providing our research participants with sufficient time for them to become fully engaged in their experimentally assigned roles of either guards or prisoners. Having [our] participants live in that setting day and night, if prisoners, or work for long eight-hour shifts, if guards, would also allow sufficient time for situational norms to develop and patters of social interaction to emerge, change and become crystallized” (Zimbardo, 2013). Other preconditions he had were the mentalities of his volunteers; are they “normal,” healthy mentally and physically, are they without any prior history of conviction or drug usage?

However, if I was in charge of this experiment, I would of had male and female participants in separate areas. Instead of Zimbardo's objective, my research would be to see the comparison between males/females and how they conform to prison life. Or test to see if the male prisoners would react any differently to having female guards instead of males. Furthermore, I would have terminated the research early if I saw that my participants were falling victim to psychological harm.

An experiment by Zimbardo provided insight on how a regular person changes roles when placed within a specific social setting. The Stanford Prison Experiment was

In 1971 Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) in the basement of Stanford University as a mock prison. Zimbardo’s aim was to examine the effect of roles, to see what happens when you put good people in an evil place and to see how this effects tyranny. He needed participants to be either ‘prisoners’ or ‘guards’ and recruited them through an advertisement, 75 male college students responded and 24 healthy males were chosen and were randomly allocated roles. Zimbardo wanted to encourage deindividuation by giving participants different uniforms and different living conditions (the guards had luxuries and the prisoners were living as real prisoners). The guards quickly began acting authoritarian, being aggressive towards the prisoners and giving them punishments causing physical and emotional breakdowns. Zimbardo’s intention was for his study to last for 2 weeks, however, it