...THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT - essay To begin with, the Stanford prison experiment was an attempt to investigate the psychological effects of percieved power. The aim was to investigate how readily people would conform the roles of guards and prisoners in a role-playing experiment that simulated the situation in prison. The experiment was carried out by a well-known and acclaimed psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971, this is the most known experiment he did. Even though the experiment itself is a big asset to behavioral psychology it is rejected by most of the people even after so many years. In the following lines, I’d like to describe to you how the experiment was getting on and show you my personal opinion on this matter. At the beginning of the experiment professor Philip Zimbardo and his team were choosing candidates that would be most suitable and then divided them into two groups — prisoners and guards based on their psychological profile. Participants were students who got paid $15 a day during 14 days long experiment. The students that were picked to be part of this experiment were formally arrested because Zimbardo wanted the experiment to be as real as possible. The students...
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...Zimbardo Research Paper Robyn-Lea Gentile University of Pheonix Zimbardo Research Paper Philip Zimbardo is the researcher behind the Stanford Prison Experiment. An experiment that changed the research world of psychology for the better. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study that consisted of males who wanted to participate in 197, “Ultimately, we were left with a sample of 24 college students from the U.S. and Canada who happened to be in the Stanford area and wanted to earn $15/day by participating in a study” (Zimbardo, 2016). After the males were selected, half of them were going to be a prisoner while the other half were going to be guards, “It is important to remember that at the beginning of our experiment there were no differences between boys assigned to be a prisoner and boys assigned to be a guard” (Zimbardo, 2016). When the prisoners were set to be in the prison environment that was setup then the guards acted as real prisoner guards and went through a booking process for the prisoners. Is is very important to know that, “As with real prisoners, our prisoners expected some harassment, to have their privacy and some of their other civil rights violated while they were in prison, and to get a minimally adequate diet – all part of their informed consent agreement when they volunteered” (Zimbardo, 2016). Although things had seemed to go fine the first day of the experiment, the second day is when everything turned for the worse! The prisoners did not respect...
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...To what extent can Zimbardo’s experiment help to explain the abuse that occurs in prison e.g. Abu Ghraib (12 marks) The Stanford Prison Experiment was a landmark psychological study of the human response to captivity, in particular, to the real world circumstances. It was conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University. The Stanford experiment is the study human response to captivity, in particular, to the real world circumstances of prison life. Participants were randomly assigned to play the role of "prisoner" or "guard". Those assigned to play the role of guard were given sticks and sunglasses; those assigned to play the Prisoners were arrested at their own homes, without warning, and taken to the local police station and, forced to wear chains and prison clothes, and transported to the basement of the Stanford psychology department, which had been converted into a jail. Several of the guards became progressively more sadistic particularly at night when they thought the cameras were off. The experiment quickly got out of hand and a riot broke out on day two. One prisoner developed a psychosomatic rash all over his body upon finding out that his "parole" had been turned down. After only 6 days, the experiment was shut down; for fear that one of the prisoners would be seriously hurt. Although the intent of the experiment was to examine prison life, the results is used to demonstrate how people are more likely to mistreat people when provided with a legitimizing...
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...psychological research of the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted at Stanford University in 1971. Ethics will be defined and the concept of risk/benefit ratio will be discussed. The Stanford Prison Experiment will be described. Finally, the impact of the Stanford Prison Experiment on psychological research will be evaluated. Ethics Defined Ethics is concerned with the principles of right conduct. In the philosophical use, ethics is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the study of morals and how it is that moral decisions are made. Ethics also has a stricter use when dealing with the rules or standards that govern conduct and right behavior (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2000). Risk/Benefit Ratio Ethical approaches to research take into account the risk/benefit ratio. This simply means that the amount of benefit that comes from a study or research clearly outweighs any adverse risks to the subjects involved in the study or research. A study or research is only considered to be ethical if there is favorable risk benefit ratio (Wikipedia, 2008). Background on the Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford Prison Experiment was created by Professor Philip Zimbardo who led a team of researchers at Stanford University in 1971. The study was designed to observe and study the human responses to captivity by both the inmates and the authority figures. In order to carry out the experiment, a mock prison was created in the basement of the Stanford psychology building and 24...
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...The Stanford Prison Experiment California State University, Long Beach The Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford Prison Experiment is a very thought-provoking topic discussed in various classes. Professor and psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted this experiment through Stanford University. Twenty-four men were randomly selected to participate in a simulated prison environment and were given roles as prisoners or prison guards. This was done to challenge the moral compass of “good” individuals in a negative environment, which in this case was a prison. Surprisingly, the participants truly embodied their roles. Throughout the experiment, the prison guards enforced their authoritarian power and tormented the prisoners both mentally and physically. Despite being the conductor of the experiment, Zimbardo also played a role as the superintendent of the prison. The Stanford Prison Experiment was significant due to its controversial nature and continued discussion in the classroom. The experiment itself was a form of field research. According to Kendall (2014), field research develops “a fuller understanding… through observations, face-to-face discussions, and participation in events.” Ultimately, a field study is an experiment that takes place outside the laboratory. It incorporates observation and interviews of individuals in a more “natural” setting in order to gather qualitative data. The Stanford Prison experiment consisted of all of these characteristics. Additionally...
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...“We fear evil, but are fascinated by it. We create myths of evil conspiracies and come to believe them enough to mobilize forces against them. We reject the ‘Other’ as different and dangerous because it’s unknown, yet we are thrilled by contemplating sexual excess and violations of moral codes by those who are not our kind.”(4) This provocative quote is one of the many excerpts from The Lucifer Effect that require the reader to delve deep into the true workings of their own mind. The Lucifer Effect by Professor Philip Zimbardo is a non-fiction piece that discusses several broad psychological topics and concepts such as good and evil, character transformation, conformity, and the potential for a person to act righteously or not. During the first...
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...Erin Rubendall Stanford Prison Experiment Introduction The Stanford Prison Experiment was led by Philip Zimbardo and his team of researchers in August 1971. Their hypothesis was to inherent personality traits of prisoners and for the guards to be a chief cause of abusive behavior in prison (Zimbardo.) Zimbardo acted as the superintendent who allowed the abuse to continue while his colleague acted as the warden. Zimbardo picked 24 out of 75 male students that were psychologically stable to take place in his experiment. The men were predominantly middle class and received $15 a day to participate in the experiment. He randomly assigned each male a role of either a prisoner or guard. Zimbardo and his team of researchers turned the basement of a Stanford building into a mock prison aiming for the experiment to last for 7- 14 days. The experiment was intended to induce disorientation, depersonalization, and deindividualization for the prisoners. The day before the experiment started, Zimbardo held an orientation for the guards explaining they were not allowed to physically harm the prisoners. Zimbardo stated, “You can create in the prisoners’ feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us, by the system, you, me, and they'll have no privacy… We're going to take away their individuality in various ways. In general what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness. That is, in this situation...
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...Many studies and experiments of the past still face scrutiny by researchers, scientists and many other people in all different fields today. Many of them have been criticized due to their unethical treatment of their subjects. Because of this, the psychological community has established a special group of people and guidelines called the Institutional Review Board that analyzes whether or not a study is ethical before it is even allowed to proceed. This board was established in 1974, three years after a study known as the Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted. The Stanford Prison Experiment began in 1971 when a psychologist named Philip Zimbardo came up with a question; he wanted to know if the brutality reported among guards in American...
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...The Stanford prison experiment was a study held at Stanford University by Professor Philip Zimbardo, to study the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or a prison guard. The expirament was conducted from August 14 to August 20 of 1971 by a team of researchers led by psychology Zimbardo, and funded by the US Office of Naval Research because it was an interest of both the US Navy and Marine Corps as an investigation into the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners. In the expirement, twenty-four male students out of 75 were selected to take on a randomly assigned role of either prisoner and or guard in a mock prison situation. This mock prison was set up in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The participants quickly adapted to their roles, exceding Zimbardo’s expectations. Within the first few days, the guards started to enforce authoritarian measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture. However, falling into their role, many of the prisoners accepted psychological abuse. This brainwashing got to the point where, at the request of the guards, the prisoners would readily harass other prisoners who attempted to rebel against or question the guards authority. However, the guards and prisoners were not the only ones who were effected by the experiment. Even Zimbardo himself, was effected. In his role as the superintendent, he permitted the abuse to continue. These harsh and hostile surroundings caused two of...
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...Research on Stanford Prison Experiment The whole purpose of the Standard Prison Experiment was to see if roles affect people’s behavior and to see if you were to put decent people in an evil place if the humanity would remain or disappear. Phillip Zimbardo believed that roles had a power effect on behavior and he was right! The experiment location was in the basement of Jordan Hall, Standard’s psychology building. “The experiment that inspired a novel, two films, countless TV programs, re-enactments and even a band.” http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/09/our-dark-hearts-stanford-prison.php They advertized the experiment in the news paper and for fifteen dollars a day, a lot of people volunteered. They accepted boy college students who had to be: psychologically stable, healthy, and have no criminal background in order to participate. They randomly chose who played what role by tossing a coin. They had twelve people playing the guards and twelve people playing the prisoners plus some extra people just in case some quit the experiment. The prisoners were allowed to quit during the experiment, but some of them seemed to forget or misunderstand that they could actually leave. The experiment got to be so real and serious, that the prisoners would tell each other that there was no way out of this hell. The role was turning them depressed and made them feel as if they were really trapped, just like real prisoners. About half of the prisoners...
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...Psychologists interested in this line of applied work may be found working in prisons, jails, rehabilitation centers, police departments, law firms, schools, government agencies. They may work directly with attorneys, defendants, offenders, victims or with patients within the state's corrections or rehabilitation centers. So i’m gonna focus on the role of psychology that shaped the jail policies. One of the event that changed the way people were treated in prisons for the last 25-30 years was the stanford prison experiment. Stanford experiment was conducted in 1973 by craig haney and Philip zimbardo. A group of healthy, normal college students were temporily but dramatically transformed in the course of six days spent in a prison like environment. Emotionally strong college students, they suffered acute psychological trauma and breakdowns. The guards too who also had been carefully chosen on the basis of their normal average scores on variety of personal measures quickly internalized their randomly assigned role. The goal in conducting the SPE was to extend that basic perspective- emphasizing the potency of social situations. The study represented an experimental demonstration of the extraordinary power of institutional environments to influence those who passed through them. The behavior of the prisoners and guards in the simulated environment had a remarkable similarity to patterns found in actual prisons. Despite the fact that guards and prisoners were essentially free to...
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...Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P.G. (1973). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69-97. “Suppose you had 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, put in that bad, evil place – would their goodness triumph?” Zimbargo Cognitive dissonance is the unconfortable feeling or stress caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a fundamental cognitive drive to reduce this dissonance by modifying an existing belief, or rejecting one of the contradictory ideas. In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues set out to create an experiment that looked at the impact of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. Zambardo, a former classmate of Stanley Milgram (Obedience experiment) was interested in expanding upon Milgram’s research. He wanted to further investigate the impact of situational variables on human behavior. That led Zimbardo to explore the psychological effect of becoming a prison guard or prisoner. The experiment took place in Stanford University, California, and there was 24 male participants. The participants we predominantly white and middle-class. There were originally 70 volunteers, but Zimbardo picked the 24 “most psychologically stable and healthy”. The “prison” was mock...
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...psychology experiment that was done by Philip Zimbardo; the experiment was called The Stanford Prison Experiment. The goal of Philip’s experiment was to look at the impact of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. “The Stanford Prison Experiment, one of the most controversial studies in the history of social psychology (Konnikova, 2015).” Philip and his colleagues set up a simulated prison in the basement of Stanford University's psychology building. They then looked over a list of 70 volunteers to screen for ones that were best fit for the experiment. Out of the 70 volunteers, 24 were picked; the screening picked those 24 “because they had no criminal background, lacked psychological issues,...
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...The Zimbardo Prison Experiment Ryan Iden IPFW The Zimbardo Prison Experiment Professor Philip Zimbardo was a professor at Stanford University and he wanted to do an experiment on how students “inmates” would react to the power of the guards and how they would respond to being a prisoner for 14 days. This prison was a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University and the experiment only lasted 6 days because the voluntary students started to get stressed out and feeling demoralized by the guards. The guards were starting to act aggressive and abusive to the students. The guards would strip them of their clothes, yell at them and make them submit to their authority. The guards and the inmates were actually starting to act as though they were in prison. This experiment to me is not unethical. The students volunteered and they also knew that this was just an experiment. I do agree that some of the guard’s motives were a little too extreme for the experiment, but al-in all the students knew what they were getting into. Some people would say that this is to extreme putting these students through all the stress and torment just for an experiment. If this was real I would say yes that this is unethical. The issue that was the most problematic to was the fact that the professor actually wanted to do this experiment and did not stop the guards from treating the students the way they did. When the prisoners started to get stressed out they should have stopped the experiment...
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...Psychology of Evil: Night "Nobody is ever just a refugee. Nobody is ever just a single thing. We dehumanize people when we reduce them to a single thing and this dehumanization is insidious and unconscious," said Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian novelist, and former refugee. As Adichie said, dehumanizing, being treated like animals, is a horrendous thing and it has happened in the past and continues to happen today. History is full of situations where victimizers abused their power resulting in deindividualized and dehumanized victims. Such as Elie Wiesel was not just prisoner A-7713, he was a human being as were others put into concentration camps and many who have been oppressed and dehumanized. In Philip Zimbardo’s experiment the guards dehumanized and deindividualized the prisoners (Zimbardo). In Night the prisoners were dehumanized when Dr. Mengele made them...
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