...To start, both of these experiments are quite disturbing and yet interesting as to how people react or act in situations if given the opportunity. I actually looked up the Milgram and the Zimbardo experiments. I watched videos of both actually. I think Milgram wanted to prove that the prison guards, doctors, etc..., did not necessarily think that they were to blame for the atrocities that occurred in concentration camps, but were in their minds “just following orders”. In his experiments people issued shocks to others in increasing intervals of strength without any concern for the pain being inflicted. They were just following orders. Zimbardo turned a Stanford University Basement into a prison with half the participants as guards and the other half as inmates. The level of cruelty that the “guards” sank to is truly amazing. Both sides of the experiment literally assimilated to the roles given. It is my belief that the subjects in these experiments used the position of following orders or authority to let the ID free and do things they would never consider in normal society with rules and laws. In Milgram’s study the ones issuing the shocks probably did enjoy or get pleasure from what they were doing. Literally they let the “order” to shock someone give them pleasure. It would be interesting to know if any of the “shockers” had become sexually excited during this experiment. Zimbardo’s experiment really shows how the ego was affected by the experiment. Guards became abusive and...
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...ethical aspects of sociologists and their studies. I didn’t think these were necessary studies but I guess is Zimbardo really was that interested in how power may have corrupted normal people and how normal people would react when exposed to it. I think it went a little bit too far when you look at the results and findings. But that is my personal opinion. Addressing the first question if it went too far. I think even though it ended in half the time it was supposed to run, it did go too far in a few aspects. In the extended documentary that I reviewed a total of four prisoners left in the first five days due to the emotional strains that were put on them specifically by one or two guards that took their roles a bit too seriously in my opinion. Some people will by nature abuse their authority whenever they can or it pleases them instead of only using it when it’s necessary. That I believe is human common sense but as discussed in Chapter 5, common sense shouldn't play a role in studies, however, I believe that the theory or notion that power does corrupt some people is common sense. If not common sense, definitely common knowledge. Some people do not know what to do properly with authority. I think Zimbardo should have stopped his experiment immediately after the first prisoner, #8612 began showing signs of mental breakdown just after four days. Zimbardo also should have noticed that his guards who were really actors were taking things a bit too far. Addressing...
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...Ethics in the Name of Science: A detailed Comparison Between Milgram and Zimbardo’s Internationally Renowned Attempts at Ethics in Social Science Experiments David Baxter Park University SO220 Ethical Issues in Social Science Kris Reichart-Anderson 2 October 2011 Abstract For years many experiments have been scrutinized for their ineffective use or lack of establishment of ethical principles within their research. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram’s Obedience experiment were ridiculed for the lack of ethics involved. Although these experiments caused unnecessary harm to their subjects they also acted as the foundation for the establishment of the Belmont Report, which in itself, would change research forever. Ethics in the Name of Science Two very controversial experiments have been dissected a thousand times over by some of social science’s most amazing minds as well as the academic populous worldwide. Though the Milgram experiment of 1962 and the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 were entirely different, they both shared the groundbreaking task of identifying the affects of “Obedience to Authority” (Milgram, 1974). Both social scientists believe they had identified the possible risks but fell short in their attempt to alleviate any ethical repercussions. This paper will address the attempts made to ensure moral and ethical studies were accomplished as well as identify where both experiments had major flaws in their plans to ensure no...
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...1960s, the social psychologist Stanley Milgram did a famous research study called the obedience study. It showed that people have a strong tendency to comply with authority figures. Milgram’s Obedience Study Milgram told his forty male volunteer research subjects that they were participating in a study about the effects of punishment on learning. He assigned each of the subjects to the role of teacher. Each subject was told that his task was to help another subject like himself learn a list of word pairs. Each time the learner made a mistake, the teacher was to give the learner an electric shock by flipping a switch. The teacher was told to increase the shock level each time the learner made a mistake, until a dangerous shock level was reached. Throughout the course of the experiment, the experimenter firmly commanded the teachers to follow the instructions they had been given. In reality, the learner was not an experiment subject but Milgram’s accomplice, and he never actually received an electric shock. However, he pretended to be in pain when shocks were administered. Prior to the study, forty psychiatrists that Milgram consulted told him that fewer than 1 percent of subjects would administer what they thought were dangerous shocks to the learner. However, Milgram found that two-thirds of the teachers did administer even the highest level of shock, despite believing that the learner was suffering great pain and distress. Milgram believed that the teachers had acted...
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...M3. Explain why conformity and obedience are important in the public services, with reference to research studies. Conformity and obedience are forms of social influence which strongly affect our behaviour is social situations, from following fashions and unwritten social norms which organise our behaviour, to committing immoral acts because we are commanded to by someone who appears to be in a position of authority. This essay looks at the similarities and differences between the three, looking specifically at the factors that influence each two. Conformity within a group entails members changing their attitudes and beliefs in order to match those of others within the group. Those that conform tend to be obedient and compliant. In order to conform, the group member must attribute someone as having the legitimacy and credibility to lead or influence the group's behaviour. Without this "leader", conformity toward the group's goals will be less prevalent. If a member of the group fails to conform to the groups needs, he/she would lose credibility with the rest of the group. Conformity is a change in an individuals behaviour according to certain accepted standards within society as well as the influence of others whether this be a real or imaginary influence. There are 2 key concepts of conformity, acceptance or compliance. People plan to join a specific public service because they want to belong to that team because they may like the sentiments of the service etc. Hence...
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...That is the Question Shanelle L. Todd and Kayla L. Thompson Brenau University Flawed or Not?: That is the Question What if I told you that the US Naval and Marine corporations funded a what they called, “prison experiment” in 1971, with a goal of finding that the prison environment produces aggressive attitudes? Zimbardo conducted this experiment in the basement of the Psychology department at Stanford University. He took regular everyday college students like you and I made some prisoners and some guards, locked them up in a very small area, and evaluated their behaviors. The question is, how were the guards and the prisoners distinguished between? Now this is where the word evil comes in. In order to make the environment a real “evil” environment the guards wore hats and badges while the prisoners wore nothing but frowsy dresses. This was Zimbardo’s bright idea of an evil environment. So, does perception come into play? Does what each person perceives as evil environments make for a trustworthy study, setting out to support such a claim? Ultimately, did Zimbardo adequately reconstruct a fair representation of a true prison setting or did Zimbardo exaggerate that too? Well, according to two documentary professionals, this study did support that evil environments produces evil behaviors stated not only by Ratnesar’s, but also by Sheere. The funding corporations were kept a secret from the general public for more than 20 years. Just recently on July 4, 2011 a man...
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...Perlis of Obedience” and Philip Zimbardo’s, “The Stanford Prison Experiment” both show when humans are given a specific role; they will compete to meet the expectations given to them by their authoritative figure. In the movie, A Few Good Men, both Milgram and Zimbardo’s experiments simplified the actions shown by the soldiers. The movie A Few Good Men relates to the experiments by exemplifying that the expectations of one’s role, leads to obedience of authority. In “The Perlis of Obedience,” Milgram was interested to see how far...
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...Year: 1957 Reference: Haney, C., 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...
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...distinguish what causes these occurrences is a complex task that has been the subject of numerous studies, yet no concrete answers are found. Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments ignited the flame of a subject that, instead of diminishing over time and becoming obsolete as a result of improved methods and new ideologies, has remained at the forefront of social and behavioral psychology. Modern research faces the critical challenge of attempting to study obedience under much more restrictive guidelines than previous studies; the results that are produced can only hope to shed light on one component of obedience and use other studies to synthesize a more complete explanation. The predecessor to all of this modern research was the Milgram obedience experiment and all of its variations. It has remained a fixture of social psychology for so long for several reasons: the enormity of the results (65% of a normal population of American men is willing to administer dangerous shocks to innocent learners), its magnitude (over 1000 people tested in 18 variations), its clarity in defining how situation influences the obedience of participants, and the questions it raised about ethics in experimental methods. These concepts have provided the impetus for numerous...
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...influential role caused several individuals to become dispositional, situational, and reflect deindividualization onto others. All of the volunteers were normal, healthy individuals, who were later put into the roles of either prisoner or prison guard. After a few days, it was seen that the prison guards assimilated into their roles, and several prisoners were becoming mentally unstable leading to both the prison guards and the prisoners to believe that they were in an actual prison. The dismal and harmful conditions resulted in one of the prisoners becoming intensely mentally unstable after which he had to be released from the experiment. While attempting to hold an experiment to observe the psychological outcomes of a prison-like situation, Zimbardo, himself, was affected like the prisoners and prison...
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...many positive and negative aspects within criminal justice. The focus of this paper will be on how violence within the walls of prisons has gotten out of hand, especially in the hands of the officers behind the badge. There have been lots cases where police officers misuse their power and authority, some more extreme than others. The power given to police officers, correctional officers, and even people in authoritative positions, gives them the impression that they can do what they please because they are above the law. This happens way too often and can cause a lot of issues within the justice system. A psychology professor from Yale University, Stanley Milgram conducted a study that demonstrated the power that is given to a person and how they decide to use it (Gross, 22). The study that was conducted by Milgram involved participants placed randomly in two groups of “teachers” and “learners”. Participants were told the experiment was studying memory, but the study was actually proving that violent behavior is an ordinary occurrence in human behavior. Participants in the “teacher” group were given the power of sending an electric shock to the “learners” who were answering questions to do with memory (Gross, 22). This study was falsely given because there was actually no electric shock sent to the “learners”. The experimenters would play a recording of shouts simulating pain of receiving shocks due to answering memory questions wrong. One example in the experiment...
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...February 2014 Good People Change Due To Bad Situations In “Revisiting The Stanford Prison Experiment: A Lesson In The Power Of Situation” By Philip G. Zimbardo the author purpose for writing this article is to inform people that people morals and behavior can change when they are put in positions of authority. For example “Psychologists had also found that research participants were often willing to obey authority figures even when doing so violated their personal beliefs.” (Zimbardo 302).The exigence of this article is the power within social groups. “They showed, for example, that groups of strangers could persuade people to believe statements that were obviously false” (Zimbardo 302). The target audience is people of power, politicians, psychologist, and college students. The context is “The Yale studies by Stanley Milgram in 1963” (Zimbardo 302). Zimbardo thesis was, “The critical message then is to be sensitive about our vulnerability to subtle but powerful situational forces and, by such awareness, be more able to overcome those forces. Group pressures, authority symbols, dehumanization of others, imposed anonymity, dominant ideologies that enable spurious ends justify immortal means, lack of surveillance, and other situational forces can work to transform even some of the best of us into Mr. Hyde monster”(Zimbardo 307). One of my supporting is “In one experiment from 1969, female students who were made to feel anonymous and given permission for aggression became significantly...
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...Ghraib-fængslet i Irak. En historie om bødlen i os alle begynder i august 1971, i en kælder under Stanford University i Californien, hvor psykologen Philip Zimbardo overvåger sit eksperiment fra et kikhul i en skillevæg. Han skimter en smal og dunkel korridor uden vinduer. Tre fangevogtere patruljerer i kakibrune uniformer. De bærer hver en fløjte, en politistav og store solbriller med refleksglas. Sceneriet er en tro kopi af et fængsel. Døre med ståltremmer forsegler tre små celler, hvor i alt ni fanger kan ligge på feltsenge. Mændene er iført tynde, kjolelignende bomuldskitler, der når dem til midt på låret. Under stoffet er de nøgne, og på fødderne bærer de gummisandaler. En jernkæde klemmer om deres ene ankel. De kostumeprægede uniformer var det eneste, der skilte de unge amerikanere, da eksperimentet gik i gang. Det har kun varet i en håndfuld døgn. Men hvilke døgn. Philip Zimbardo havde ikke i sin vildeste forskerfantasi forudset, hvordan begivenhederne ville udvikle sig. For i det kunstige fængsel klæder fangevogterne deres fanger nøgne. De tvinger dem til at rense lokummer med de bare næver, hoppe englehop med flagrende kønsorganer og råbe idiotiske remser og tage armbøjninger. Om natten forbyder de toiletbesøg, og stanken breder sig som pest i cellerne, mens fangerne urinerer og skider i spande. Nu ved Philip Zimbardo også fra videooptagelser, hvad vogterne laver i smug. De må have troet, at forskerne ikke lurede på dem om natten, at eksperimentet lå stille. ...
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...The experiment[edit] Milgram Experiment advertisement Three individuals were involved: the one running the experiment, the subject of the experiment (a volunteer), and a confederate pretending to be a volunteer. These three people fill three distinct roles: the Experimenter (an authoritative role), the professor (a role intended to obey the orders of the Experimenter), and the Learner (the recipient of stimulus from the Teacher). The subject and the actor both drew slips of paper to determine their roles, but unknown to the subject, both slips said "teacher". The actor would always claim to have drawn the slip that read "learner", thus guaranteeing that the subject would always be the "teacher". At this point, the "teacher" and "learner" were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. In one version of the experiment, the confederate was sure to mention to the participant that he had a heart condition.[1] The "teacher" was given an electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock that the "learner" would supposedly receive during the experiment. The "teacher" was then given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the learner. The teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect, the teacher would administer a shock to...
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...Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment PSYCH/620 May 31, 2015 Dr. Al Clark Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment Dr. Phillip Zimbardo of Stanford University led a team of researchers to conduct a social experiment on the effects of imposed social roles in the penal system. Internal dispositions changed to adapt to the confinement of the prison. The behavior observed of the participants was morally repugnant and apprehensible in response to role of authority. Participants assigned to a prisoner role broke down in response to captivity. The study focused on behavioral attributes that attributed sadistic behavior to the prison environment opposed to an innate tendency towards a cruel personality (Zimbardo, 2007). The impact of Dr. Zimbardo’s study on social psychology Dr. Zimbardo’s classic psychological study relating to the psychological effects of the prisoner and prison guard relationship was momentous to social psychology. The study was influential to social psychology in the way that we were able to understand the circumstances that enable a normal, caring individual to carryout sadistic acts. Zimbardo’s prison experiment was a prison simulation based on Milgram’s research on obedience to authority. The study confirmed notions on how situations could completely corrupt human behavior (Stanley, 2006). Relevance of the Study in Relation to Contemporary World Issues The experiment influenced...
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