The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Psychology Of Evil

It is a very arguable subject on whether or not people are born with good intentions, and therefore taught by others the ‘evil’ side of their personality. Whether it is the absence of ethical conduct in human nature, or just the way one perceives a situation, evil seems to be prominent in our everyday lives. Humans seem to have a moral code that follows them with every decision they make, yet despite the laws of morality and society, people of this world still seem to behave inhumanely because of the act of self-preservation, human interest, and who exactly the authority figure is at the time.

In The Stanford Prison Experiment it explains how guards take power over the prisoners. In paragraph 11 it tells how they are tormenting the prisoners and enjoying the things that they are doing. The guards demanded even greater obedience from

So In The Stanford Prison Experiment They tested how the guards and prisoners acted over a span of a couple days. The guards started being really rude while making mean comments about the prisoners so much so they had to end the experiment early. Mcleod stated that “The “prison” environment was an important factor in creating the guards’ brutal behavior (none of the participants who acted as guards showed sadistic tendencies before the

She begins recounting the notorious details, how innocent college students labeled prisoners and guards displayed psychological abuse after only six days of confinement, and makes reference to Stanley Milgram’s obedience study and Abu Ghraib, where similar maltreatment, perceived or real, was conducted on civilians by civilians. She addresses and refutes the accepted belief that the Stanford Prison Experiment proved that anyone could become a tyrant when given or instructed by a source of authority. Instead, she suggests that Zimbardo’s inquiry points toward but does not land on one exact conclusion. She explains the influence of the setting, the presentation of the roles, Zimbardo’s participation, and perhaps a sense of expectation felt, all of which can be reflected in the shocking behavior of a few guards. She argues that it should not have been so shocking. Konnikova discredits the neutrality of Zimbardo’s experiment by insisting that people who would respond to an ad for a psychological study of prison life were not “normal” people. However, with her diction and choice of evidence she displaces the study's culpability in a way that ultimately blurs and undermines her claim.

In the Stanford Prison Experiment, there were regular people acting as prisoners and guards. The guards had power over the prisoners, but quickly started to abuse it. They would harshly punish the prisoners, and because of that the prisoners revolted. Were the guards taking their role too seriously? This questioned the reality of the experiment, and the reality of legitimate prisons. They took the position so realistically, and put so much power upon themselves, that it made the prison unsafe. This situation is slightly similar to that of Aurelio Escobar in “One of These Days”. In that story, the mayor has complete control over the dentist. He has so much control, that he would sensibly shoot him. This shows how serious some situations become in reality

“Human nature is evil and goodness is caused by intentional activity” - Xunzi. Humans by nature have natural tendencies to evil however not everyone acts on those emotions.

People are always getting into situations that have two possible ways to go. That person can choose the right thing to do or the worse. There have been numerous amounts of people asking the question “what is good and evil?” Many have tried conducting experiments to try and find the roots of what makes people good/evil? Evil acts and evil itself can be shown through the social, economic, and mental environment.

In the experiment, people were picked randomly and one as a teacher and one as the student. They were told to take a quiz and give electric shocks of increasing intensity as punishment if the student can’t answer. During the experiment, many people were concerned as someone can be heard shouting but only a few people who decided to stop and stick to their morals. But the others kept on going because they were just following orders from a superior (Milgram 77). "The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip Zimbardo, is about an experiment that was made to understand the roles people play in prison situations. For the experiment, Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison. The participants were told to act as prisoners and guards. It was planned to be a two-week experiment but was forced to shut down in 6 days, all because of people quickly getting into their roles and started acting like the real prisoners and guards (Zimbardo 104). To compare both experiments, although they differed vastly in design and methodology, the point of both experiments was to observe how far an individual would go in inflicting increasing pain on a victim. Also how people obey under authoritative circumstances, when given power or different roles, however the writers differ in the seriousness of the fight for individuality and the use of reality.

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.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is known as one of the most infamous social experiments in the study of psychology. Conducted by Stanford professor Phillip G. Zimbardo, the experiment was a prison simulation using male college students that volunteered. Zimbardo’s experiment was designed to strip prisoners of their individuality and freedom and put them in a place where they were powerless against people with whom they would be equal in the outside world (Shuttleworth, Martyn). The intent of his experiment was to answer his questions about the conflict and morality between prisoners and guards. Professor Zimbardo pondered these questions after being an expert witness in a trial regarding the abuses of Abu Ghraib, an american prison in Iraq (Shuttleworth,

When put into the position of complete authority over others people will show their true colors. I think that most people would like to think that they would be fair, ethical superiors. I know I would, but learning about the Stanford Prison Experiment has made me question what would really happen if I was there. Would I be the submissive prisoner, the sadistic guard, or would I stay true to myself? As Phillip Zimbardo gave the guards their whistles and billy clubs they drastically changed without even realizing it. In order to further understand the Stanford Prison experiment I learned how the experiment was conducted, thought about the ethical quality of this experiment, and why I think it panned out how it did.

The air is saturated with the smell of concrete and fear. The wailing of men echoes through the dark, unholy halls. A new face makes its way in. Only thing harder than holding back tears, are trying to not show fear. They will feed of it, off of me. It will not break me; I will not break. This is what to expect from an evil place where grown men can be molded; broken and reformed into a weaker being or into a strong piece of iron. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study put together by Phillip Zambardo to test the psychological effects of a prisoner and guard scenario in a mock prison setting. The experiment lasted seven to fourteen days and was comprised of twenty-four male students, who were picked at random to take part in the experiment. The role of guard and prisoner were also selected at random. The mock prisoners were subjugated to psychological abuse, harsh authoritarian rule by the guards, and intense living conditions to ensure maximum results were met. The experiment concluded early and a couple prisoners left due to an intense amount of stress brought on from the ordeal. Although the experiment was brief, it gave a great deal of insight into how environment can abruptly affect the psychological well-being of an individual. Zimbardo states, “Would those good people, put in that bad, evil place—would their goodness triumph?” (Cherry, 2006) Everyone has darkness within them and all it takes is a little push. Every person picked for this experiment was not

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by a research group led by Dr. Philip Zimbardo using Stanford students during August 14 through the 20th of 1971. Dr. Zimbardo wanted to see how people reacted when they are either put in captivity or in charge of others. The study was funded by the US Office of Naval Research and grew interest to both the US Navy and the Marine Corps for an investigation to the purpose of conflict among military guards and prisoners. In the study, 24 male students were selected out of 75 applicants to take on randomly assigned roles. One of the surprises of the study was how participants quickly adapted to roles well beyond expectations. After the first eight hours, the experiment turned to be a joke and nobody was taking it seriously but then prisoners

This short clip called “The Power of the situation” goes into depth of the Stanford’s prison experiment. It first goes into explaining how people can be impacted if given certain attributes which later results in different behaviors. The video explains in which how it was possible for Hitler to become dictator and have so many people under his control. Kurt Lewen and his research team found that dictators changed people’s behaviors when they were given uniforms because it gave them a new identity. They did an experiment by setting three groups of boy with 3 different leaders and leadership styles to see what the resulting effects of each were.

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