Stanford Prison Experiment Zimbardo

Less than two days into the experiment, one of the prisoners began to experience rage, emotional disturbance, uncontrollable crying, began acting crazy, and screaming. The experiment leaders realized he was really suffering and they had to release him. The next day was visiting day for the parents and friends of the prisoners. In order to stop parents from taking their children home, the experimenters cleaned the prison and the prisoners to make them seem pleasant. After the parents visited, there were rumors going around that the prisoners were going to attempt to escape. After the rumor was proved to be untrue, guards acted harshly towards the prisoners and added punishments. A priest who visited the prison, talked with prisoners and offered to contact some of their families for legal help. By day five, there were three types of guards; tough but fair guards, good guards, and hostile guards.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was very strange. When one of the prisoners said “they were out of control,” I thought about an authoritarian leader- someone that controls every aspect of a person’s life. I think Zimbardo, creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the guards were being an authoritarian leader. I thought it was disturbing that some of the people that were given the guards position only said “yes” to participate in the experiment because they needed a job and thought that the Prison Experiment would be more entertaining. I think it was weird that being in this experiment changed the “prisoners” physically and mentally. In the Stanford Prison Experiment video, it mentioned the electric shock experiment that was done to people

10 of them were selected to play the role of prisoners and 11 were selected as guards and the remaining two were placed on standby. The participants who played the role of prisons were treated like real criminals and was arrested at their homes, then taken to the police station to be fingerprinted, have their mugshots taken and after they were escorted to the mocked prison which was located in the basement of the psychology department of Stanford University. Upon arrive at the facility the prisoners clothes and personal belonging were taken away from them, then deloused and they were given uniform that resemble a smock and they were referred to as numbers as opposed to their names. They had no underwear but were provided with caps to cover their hair and had a chain around their ankles. The guards wore khaki uniforms and black sunglasses to avoid eye contact with the prisoners, the guards were left in charge of the prison and were instructed to enforce law and order by any means necessary bar physical punishment.

The prisoners became submissive and accepted a denigrating treatment. They discriminated against the rioters of the group and obeyed the orders of the guards, although this involved humiliating

Drs. Milgram and Zimbardo both made groundbreaking discoveries in their field and led people forward based on this knowledge. Both studies originally, in thought, started out to be ethical but the way the experimenters went about the treatment of those being tested was unethical due to the mental stresses put on by both experiments. The physical humiliation the participants were put through in the Stanford Prison experiment was uncalled for. It was not right to trade the suffering experienced by participants for knowledge gained because these people are left with physiological damage because of how they were treated. In Milgram’s experiment they all believed they were shocking a man with a heart condition which brought undue stress to the teacher, but they weren’t doing any actual damage to him. In the Stanford Prison experiment the prisoners were belittled and shamed and made to feel like actual prisoners. One prisoner went on hunger strike and refused to eat unless released. The hunger strike and most of the guard’s emotional attacks caused major psychological scars and emotional damage. This is what many people actually experience when they come out of prison.

The Guard s however showed what was termed the ‘Pathology of Power’ where the participants playing the roles of guards found huge pleasure and enjoyment in their execution of power and sometimes sadistic actions which would explain their willingness to work extra time for no pay and their genuine disappointment when the study ended. Punishments with little or no justification were applied with verbal assaults and in the case of some guards, aggressive physical action. The prison became dirty and inhospitable; bathroom rights became privileges, which could be, and frequently were, denied. Some prisoners were forced to clean toilets with bare hands. Moreover, prisoners endured forced nudity and even sexual humiliation. Experimenters said that approximately one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies.

The Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment has to be one of the cruelest and disturbing experiments I have witnessed since the Milgram experiment. This experiment was pushed far beyond its means and went extremely too far. I know experiments in 1971 weren’t as thorough and strategic as today's but I know today's rules and regulations never allow cruel and unusual punish just to test out one’s theory’s. I don’t believe criminologists should be permitted to conduct replications of Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment. I also know that the ACJS and other organizations who set the rules and guidelines for experiments would not promote or condone an experiment that is dangerous and is unethical such as Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment. There were no boundaries or a level

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a classic study conducted by Dr. Philip Zimbardo to test whether external factors in the environment can influence a person to behave contrary to their dispositional tendencies. Zimbardo wanted to know what happens to a person who is “good” in an evil place. More specifically, he wanted to see if institutions such as a prison has the power to control a persons behavior or if their good nature rises above the negative environment.

After just one day in the prison, a rebellion surfaced led by prisoner 8612, who was especially harassed and targeted by the guards (The Stanford Prison Experiment). After only 36 hours and being locked in solitary confinement, prisoner 8612 was released from the experiment because he showed symptoms of depression (McLeod, Saul). The mental state that prisoner 8612 was driven to was unexpected but gave an idea of what can cause the line between reality and imagination to be blurred; however, this didn’t scare Zimbardo into quitting, but motivated him to get even more reaction and results. The boys were forced to stand in the hallways naked, or locked in solitary confinement for hours at a time while screaming to be released. Zimbardo himself explained that he had become the superintendent of the prison, no longer the conductor, and was not able to see the boy’s suffering.

The guards devised pointless tasks and demeaning actions, which in turn dehumanized the prisoners. The students began to adopt prisoner-like behaviors, obeying prison rules set forth by the guards and discussing prison matters for the majority of their conversations. The guards aggression level began to increase as the prisoners became more submissive. In the second day of the experiment, the prisoners barricaded their cell doors with their mattresses. The guards forced them away from the doors with fire extinguishers, and then stripped the prisoners naked and confiscated the beds.

Society has an influence in most of our daily activities, especially when these activities involve other people. During the Zimbardo Prison Experiment two groups of students were asked to play one of two roles, a prisoner and a guard. The good people that played the guards were completely caught up in their role as prison guard and created a new identity to match their situation. Their normal behavior would not have worked in an environment where they must be strict to keep "criminals" in check, therefore they had to change their behavior into a more ruthless and aggressive manner to fit their new role. During the reign of Nazi Germany most of the soldiers were not apparently capable of doing the acts that were committed, but because of the

4 prisoners had to be released during the first 4 days due to reactions such as anxiety, rage and depression. Guards abused their power as days went by. Experiment had to end after 6 days because things were getting out of hand. Guards had complete control over the prisoners. The staff had to remind the guards constantly to refrain from abuse.

The Zimbardo prison experiment was set up to investigate the problem of what the psychological effects for normal people result from being a guard or inmate, and in a broader sense are normal people capable of being ‘evil.’ The research question being asked was, “How would normal people react to being in a simulated prison environment? In Zimbardo’s own words, "Suppose you had only kids who were normally healthy, psychologically and physically, and they knew they would be going into a prison-like environment and that some of their civil rights would be sacrificed. Would those good people, (when) put in that bad, evil place (have) their goodness triumph?"

The guards were not given teaching, so they had to figure everything out for themselves. The guards had a slight limit to what they could do physically, but besides that, they had complete freedom to use whatever means necessary. Guards often held “Counts”, where the guards would wake up the prisoners, and make them read aloud their assigned prison identification. The reason for these

Philip Zimbardo is an Influential Psychologist who is most known for the infamous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. He conducted the experiment to get an understanding of how roles, labels and social expectations affect a person in a prison. This experiment has had such in an impact that it has changed the way prisons and rules within the prisons are set up. It all began with an idea: 24 males and a simulated prison environment.