The Stanford Prison Study Analysis One of the most well known classic psychology experiments of all time is the Stanford Prison Study. The study was chiefly conducted by Philip Zimbardo. The study is very well known because do to the outcome of the behaviors of people, the experiment was never able to be completed. The experiment began on a early August morning when a mass number of people were arrested for Armed Robbery and Burglary in Palo Alto, California (Zimbardo, 2015). Everyone who was arrested was a volunteer who saw a newspaper ad and wanted to participate in the experiment (Zimbardo, 2015). Zimbardo wanted to use these people to see the psychological effects of prisoners and prison guards (Zimbardo, 2015). A large number of applicants were given interviews and evaluations to eliminate several people who were not capable of participating in the experiment (Zimbardo, 2015). Once the boys were chosen, they were randomly assigned to be a prisoner or a prison guard by the flip of a coin (Zimbardo, 2015). They used the basement of the Stanford Psychology department as a make shift prison (Zimbardo, 2015). When the experiment officially began, each prisoner was brought in and stripped naked for a search (Zimbardo, 2015). The prisoners were then given uniforms, and once they put them on there was a notable difference in the way …show more content…
Less then 36 hours in, Prisoner #8612 suffered from acute emotional distress and rage (Zimbardo, 2015). At first the experimenters thought the prisoner was trying to con them into releasing him (Zimbardo, 2015). It took a long time for the experimenters to really believe that he was suffering and that they had to release him (Zimbardo, 2015). The next day when parents and friends visited, they worked to make the jail look more pleasant (Zimbardo, 2015). They are surprised to see that parents complained about the rules, but complied with them (Zimbardo,
From the video provided this week and doing some personal reading, the phenomenon behind the Stanford prison experiment was a social psychology experiment, this was a prison environment simulation that was supposed to last 2 weeks. The goal was to observe the effects of variables on participants' reactions and behaviors, this experiment was designed to determine if prison brutality is a result of malicious guards and evil prisoners, or whether institutional roles of guards and prisoners embitter and harden even compassionate individuals. Zimbardo wanted to put good people in an evil place and see what would happen. As the Social Psychology textbook says “Do the people make the place violent, or does the place make the people violent? Cristina
In the six days that the experiment ran they saw the personalities that the prisoner and prison guards took.
After talking with the guards and asking if he could leave, he was refused and asked to become an informant. He went back and told the other prisoners that they were not able to leave, and it was not until he started having uncontrollable fits of rage, screaming, crying, and cursing, that the researchers decided that they should let him leave the experiment. Four days later, a guard detained prisoner #436 in a 2x2 foot closet for the night, without informing the researchers about the situation while instructing other prisoners that the only way the closet would open would be if they gave up their blankets and slept on their mattresses. This is one of the many forms of harassment that the guards inflicted on the
In 1971, Philip Zimbardo set out to conduct an experiment to observe behavior as well as obedience. In Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment, many dispute whether it was obedience or merely conforming to their predesigned social roles of guards and prisoners that transpired throughout the experiment. Initially, the experiment was meant to test the roles people play in prison environment; Zimbardo was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards, disposition, or had more to do with the prison environment. This phenomenon has been arguably known to possibly influencing the catastrophic similarities which occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.The
This experiment was conducted in Stanford University by Dr. Zimbardo. During this two week long session, Dr. Zimbardo had several volunteers agree to act as prisoners and as prison guards. The prisoners were told to wait in their houses while the guards were to set up the mock prison, a tactic used by Dr. Zimbardo to make them fit into their roles more. The official police apprehended the students assigned to the role of prisoner from their homes, took mug shots, fingerprinted them, and gave them dirty prison uniforms. The guards were given clean guard uniforms, sunglasses, and billy clubs borrowed from the police.
One of the most infamous experiments conducted in the history of psychology was the Stanford Prison Experiment. The main objective of this experiment was to see what effects would occur when a psychological experiment into human nature was performed. As I read through the material provided, I noticed that my thoughts on the matter were similar to many; that it was a complete failure as a scientific research project. However, his findings did provide us with something much more important that is still being talked about today; insight into human psychology and social behavior.
They also concluded that the environment of the prison played a vital role in the way the guards treated the prisoners. It is believed that this experiment changed the way some U.S. prisons are
Authority gives a person the chance to feel superior, and as seen throughout this film, those within the position of authority will only then abuse this opportunity. Given the chance for people to gain authority or rather the sense of authority is enough to awaken the evil within. Within the movie, The Stanford Prison Experiment the guards were enabled to set a line of difference between the prisoners and themselves. They were able to make the prisoners feel weak or emasculated, forcing the students to strip and wear the assigned prison clothes that barely covered their genitals (Alvarez). Forcing the prisoners to wear these feminine articles of clothing and assigning them a number, gives the opportunity to strip away their personality and
During the fall of 1973, Phillip Zimbardo conducted his famous Stanford Prison Study where he recruited 24 undergraduate students to either become prisoners or guards in his experimental prison: the “Stanford County Jail". The recreation of this prison was conducted to study how an individual’s status and/or label changed depending on the social role they had to fulfill. The participants included 12 guards and 12 prisoners, each given proper uniform to wear, such as providing the prisoners with a smock that contained ID numbers on both sides and a chain with a heavy ball around their ankle. Both groups were also given detailed instructions on the requirements they had to complete in order for the individual to assimilate to their character.
In August of 1971, the U.S. Office of Naval Research funded an experiment to study the psychological effects of the guard and prisoner roles. They were interested in understanding the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners. Led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo, and conducted at Stanford University, he used students to study the psychology of imprisonment. This experiment was known as the Stanford Prison Experiment.
They were stripped naked and had all their personal possessions removed. They were only given a prison dress and has a chain on their right foot. On the other hand, the guards wore identical khakis. They were instructed to do whatever they thought is right to maintain law and order in the prison. But they are not given a permission to abuse the prisoners physically.
Ted Talk on the Stanford Prison Experiment relates in proving that when freedom is put into play the evil comes out from inside a person. The Jail supervisors are the law. The jail supervisors physically, sexually and mentally abuse the inmates. A jail supervisor would not act in this manner out of the walls of the prison, in
Unit 1 Written Assignment Literature Review of article on Standard Prison Experiment Introduction This article concerns the Stanford Prison experiment carried out in 1971 at Stanford University. The experiment commenced on August 14, and was stopped after only six days. It is one of the most noted psychological experiments on authority versus subordinates. The studies which emerged from this have been of interest to those in prison and military fields due to its focus on the psychology associated with authority.
Normal People Behaving Evil The Stanford Prison Experiment was an experiment to see if normal people would change their behavior in a role-play as a prisoner or a prison guard. The experiment was conducted by Dr.Philip Zimbardo in 1973 at Stanford University that caused numerous amount of trauma to prisoners by prison guards in their role-playing position which forced Dr. Zimbardo to officially terminate the experiment six days after it was introduced. Due to the cruel aggressive behaviors from the guards, the experiment led to a question, "Do "normal" people have the capability of behaving badly?" The answer to that question is that most likely an individual who behave normally will have the capability of expressing evil behavior due to the environment that they are surrounded.