...5, 2012 The Stanford Prison Study In the early 70’s, twenty-four male college students with no prior criminal history were selected to participate in a prison study that was conducted on the campus grounds of Stanford University. Before being placed in the stimulated prison that was designed by Zimbardo and his colleagues for this particular study, each student was given the option to be a prison guard or prisoner. The prison study was originally scheduled to last approximately two weeks. During the prison study researchers immediately observed the behavior changes of the guards and prisoners. For instance, the morning of the second day of the study prisoners began to rebel by taking off their stocking caps, ripping off their numbers, barricading themselves inside their cells, and not following the guards instructions. As a result, the guards became very aggressive and abusive toward the rebelling prisoners which resulted in them abusing their power to harass and intimidate prisoners. The guard’s abusive behaviors left the prisoners feeling extremely stressed, depressed, and experiencing episodes of anxiety (excessive crying and other negative emotions). In fact, several prisoners who experienced severe negative emotions were immediately released from the study. In view of these facts, the prison study only lasted a total of six days due to the guards, the authority figures, abusing their power and slowly dehumanizing their prisoners. In the end, the study demonstrated that...
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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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...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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... a psychology professor at Stanford University. Zimbardo researching how prisoners and guards learned submissive and authoritarian roles. There was an ad placed in the newspaper by Zimbardo seeking male subjects to participate in his research experiment. There was a $15 per day compensation offered to the chosen participants. There were roughly 75 people to respond to the professors ad. However there were only 25 chosen to participate in the experiment needed for a study of prison life. Zimbardo designed his experiment to go the duration of 15 days. The men who were selected to participate in the experiment were separated into two groups, the prisoners in one group, guards in the other. Zimbardo informed them all their rights would be violated and they were to be harassed. Phillip K. Zimbardo’s reason for conducting the Stanford Prison experiment was to expand upon Milgram’s research. It was Zimbardo’s desire to further investigate the impact of situational variables on human behavior. According to Christian perspective with this study we as followers of Jesus Christ should avoid being disrespectful, confrontational and dehumanizing to one another no matter one’s current social situation(s). We should approach one another with an open mind and not judging one another for our sins or wrong doings. Approaching the situations when enforcing rules is one thing but to put one down, break ones’ spirits are not Christ like. The Stanford Prison Experiment would not be allowed...
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...(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, and constructed in the basement...
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...The Stanford Prison Experiment was a landmark psychological study of the human response to captivity, in particular, to the real world circumstances of prison life. Subjects 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 prisoner role were arrested by the Palo Alto police department, deloused, forced to wear chains and prison garments, and transported to the basement of the Stanford psychology department, which had been converted into a sort of jail. What was the lesson learned from Zimbardo’s (1971) Stanford Prison experiment about the influence of social roles on an individual’s behavior? Several of the guards became progressively more sadistic — particularly at night when they thought the cameras were off, despite being picked by chance out of the same pool as the prisoners. The experiment very quickly got out of hand. 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 (of a planned two weeks), 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 captivity, its result has been used to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support. It is also used to illustrate cognitive...
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...The Stanford Prison Experiment was unethical for a number of reasons. According to McLeod (2007), for research to be considered as being ethical, there should be informed consent from the participants. Informed consent can only result if all participants have been given adequate information on the purpose of the research and the procedures to be used in the study. Additionally, informed consent depends on the participant’s full understanding of any dangers they may face during the research. However, in the Stanford case, participants were not fully debriefed on risks of participation in the experiment (Chang, 2015). Additionally, the researcher, Zimbardo promoted an unpredictable research that himself could not predict the outcome. Consequently, any consent may have been gotten through deception (McLeod, 2007). Again, the research was unethical as it exposed participants to unknown dangers. As a result, two participants had to remove from the experiment before its conclusion. Indeed, participants playing the role of prisoners were exposed to psychological and physical abuse. For instance, one participant who played the role of a prisoner had to be released before the due time because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming and crying after being subjected to abuse (Rubina, 2015). Again, the Stanford research was unethical since it was ended prematurely before fully debriefing participants about its success or failure. More importantly, the study broke research ethics...
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...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 system and social and institutional support (e.g. prison). It is also...
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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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...I chose to write about the ethics of the Stanford Prison Experiment led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo. I think a number of factors in this study would not pass current ethical standards set by the American Psychological Association (APA). The first is I believe that even though all of the participants of the study were given informed consent before the start of the experiment, I don’t believe that the subjects were aware of the physical and mental humiliation that they would have to endure during its course. At the very start, the subjects were taken from in front of their homes in front of neighbors by armed police officers. They were then taken to the prison blindfolded and made to strip down naked in a degrading manner in order to purposely humiliate them. They shaved their heads in order to take away any of the prisoners personal identity. I think there was also great deception on behalf of the researchers when the participants’ families came to visit them. The guards cleaned the cells, clean shaved the prisoners, fed them a large meal and played music over the loud speakers to make the visitor blind of the real situation. This manipulation shows that Dr. Zimbardo knew that the physical conditions of the prison were unsanitary and could have posed a health risk, and that the treatment of the prisoners was in fact un-ethical. According to this website http://www.simplypsychology.org/zimbardo.html Zimbardo claimed that he could have not predicted that any of these things could...
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...Zimbardo - Stanford Prison Experiment by Saul McLeod published 2008 Aim: To investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life. Zimbardo (1973) was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards or had more to do with the prison environment. Procedure: Zimbardo used a lab experiment to study conformity. To study the roles people play in prison situations, Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison. He advertised for students to play the roles of prisoners and guards for a fortnight. 21 male college students (chosen from 75 volunteers) were screened for psychological normality and paid $15 per day to take part in the experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison environment. The prison simulation was kept as “real life” as possible. Prisoners were arrested at their own homes, without warning, and taken to the local police station. Guards were also issued a khaki uniform, together with whistles, handcuffs and dark glasses, to make eye contact with prisoners impossible. No physical violence was permitted. Zimbardo observed the behavior of the prisoners and guards. Here they were treated like every other criminal. They were fingerprinted, photographed and ‘booked’. Then they...
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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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...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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...The Stanford Prison experiment was a psychological experiment that took place in 1971 at Stanford University and was conducted by Philip Zimbardo a psychology professor who believed that prisons were violent places because of the nature of the roles guards and prisoners were expected to play and the rules and expectations attached to these roles. Zimbardo argues that no matter who was placed in such a position they would act in the same manner, based on their expected and perceived roles. Zimbardo attempted to prove his hypothesis by putting law-abiding middle class male students in the position of prisoners and guards. Twenty four male volunteers were chosen and randomly divided into two groups, 12 guards and 12 prisoners. Uniforms were issued to each group, very few rules were given except that the guards were permitted to do whatever they felt necessary to keep order...
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...experience like this? 3. At first push-ups were not a very aversive form of punishment, but they became more so as the study wore on. Why the change? 4. How do you think you would have behaved if you were a prisoner in this situation? Would you have rejected these privileges in order to maintain prisoner solidarity? 5. Most prisoners believed that the subjects selected to be guards were chosen because they were bigger than those who were made prisoners, but actually, there was no difference in the average height of the two groups. What do you think caused this misperception? 6. Compare the reactions of these visitors to the reactions of civilians in encounters with the police or other authorities. How typical was their behavior? 7. In an exploratory study such as this, one problem is defining what the "data" are -- the information we should collect. Also, what should have been done to minimize the effects of experimenter bias on the outcome of the study? What were the dangers of the principal investigator assuming the role of prison superintendent? 8. In 2003 U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners held at Abu Ghraib, 20 miles west of Baghdad. The prisoners were stripped, made to wear bags over their heads, and sexually humiliated while the guards laughed and took photographs. How is this abuse similar to or different from what took place in the Stanford Prison Experiment? 9. Where had our "John Wayne" learned to become such a guard? How could he and others move so readily...
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