Having watched both videos on Milgram's and Zimbardo's Study as well as, reading about the bystander effect I began to consider how alarming it is for a person who is in a situation within a group can be influenced. Especially to the point of carrying out quetionable acts while accountablity and responsbility is relinquished. For Example those who have and are serving in the milatry Just as those who have been in the military may have had to use reaffirmations of carrying out orders in which they possibily may have contemplated in carrying out. Just like guards Zimbardo's study they portrayed the prioneros as bad guys due to the shackles along with other symbolic represetantions in which the guards and Zimbardo himself allowed guards…
In discussions of the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Philip G. Zimbardo in 1970, one controversial issue has been whether or not the experiment should have ever been attempted. On the one hand, Dr. Zimbardo and his colleagues argued that the experiment gave them a deeper understanding of human suffering and a greater empathy for their fellow man (Ratnesar 2011). On the other hand, one of the former guards contended that the experiment made him more hostile and less sympathetic during his time as a guard and that the circumstances significantly altered his perception of what was appropriate behavior. Others even maintain that the prison experiment degraded the prisoners so greatly, empowered the guards to such a great extent, and even affected Dr. Zimbardo’s behavior and mannerisms so dramatically that it thoroughly altered their sense of…
Authority and Identity usually lead to compliances and conformity and these techniques usually occur in real life situation too. To test out if human being would lose their moral and social values when they lost their individuality, Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment in 1971 to see how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life (Zimbardo - Stanford Prison Experiment, 2008). This experiment was called The Stanford Prison Experiment and it was conducted at Stanford University. While the real life situation that was being mentioned, connected and relevant to Zimbardo’s experiment is the Abu Ghraib prison abuses. Abu Ghraib prison was a U.S. Army detention center for…
In 1971, psychologist Phillip Zimbardo set out to create an experiment that looked at the impact of becoming a prisoner or a prison guard. The experiment was to test human behavior when one's role had been altered into authoritative one. Still powerful after all these years the experiment was the most powerful and popular experiment of all time (O'Toole, K). Researches set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University building. There were the 24 students out of 70 volunteers chosen to play the roles of the prisoners or prison guards.…
My first impression from watching the film was the relationship between the study’s prisoners and guards seemed friendly at first. Though they’re encouraged by Zimbardo and his associates to take the experiment seriously and to invest themselves fully in their roles, the subjects initially still understand that they’re not really in a prison but then, the experiment takes a turn when a guard named Christopher Archer begins to embrace a meaner personality one, in which I suspect from watching the experiment, is not his normal demeanor but, rather, a more boosted version of himself of which he perceives to be his role. Archer introduces an element of meanness to the proceedings, altering the prisoners’ mindset the prisoners start to feel dehumanization…
The Stanford Experiment is a study of experimental psychology conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971 on the effects of the prison situation. It was created with students playing the roles of guards and prisoners. It was intended to study the behavior of ordinary people in such a context and effect was to show that this was the situation rather that the personality of the participants who was at the origin of behaviours sometimes opposite the values professed by participants before the start of the study.…
A controversial experiment by Zimbardo (1971) (Spoors et al.) shows how a groups of males were separated into two groups of guards and prisoners in a make shift prison. After six days of a two week experiment it was stopped. The guards became abusive while the prisoners showed signs of emotional disturbance.…
Phillip K. Zimbardo, who is a professor of psychology at Stanford University, directed the Stanford Prison Experiment, also known as the Zimbardo Experiment. The goal of the Zimbardo experiment was to research how willing human beings would imitate to the characters of correctional officers and inmates in an acting role that replicated life behind bars. But what really happens when you remove the freedoms of human beings and place them in subservient positions and place them in jail cell type settings? The answer is that the mind and physical well-being is drastically and forever changed for the worse, which Mr. Zimbardo’s tests proved.…
This study is considered a classic when with regards to prison psychology. According to the American Psychological Association (2004) “Its messages have been carried in many textbooks in the social sciences, in classroom lectures across many nations, and in popular media renditions. Its web site has gotten over 15 million unique page views in the past four years, and more than a million a week in the weeks following the expose of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American Military Police army reservists in Abu Ghraib Prison”. Zimbardo’s research has come to be known as one of the classical example of how circumstantial power has the ability to influence individuals in multiple domains. This experiment is historically one of the prime examples of how even the most “good” person when placed under specific situations can in turn transform into “evil”. It shows just how easily individuality can be stripped away and in turn how the environment can define and dictate ones…
The experiment took place in the basement of the Psychology department in Stanford University and selected 24 undergraduate students out of 70 volunteers due to their lack of psychological issues and had no criminal record. Zimbardo paid each of the 24 participants 15 dollars a day in a span of one to two weeks. The 24 volunteers were randomly assigned to play a role as either a guard or a prisoner. The cell was made up of three prison cells, each one holding three mock prisoners. The guards chosen had to work in an eight hour shift alongside two other participants. The guards chosen have their own cell to themselves and one small room for solitary confinement. Kendra Cherry stated in her article that, “According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrates the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior” (Cherry). The volunteers for this experiments took on their role almost instantaneously.…
By doing this it would allow the person, whether it had been Zimbardo himself or someone else to remain more objective by not being so emotionally and physically involved. Secondly he denied Richard Yacco the ability to leave. Whenever one conducts an experiment, all who are involved should have the right to end their involvement at anytime. Finally there was no proper debriefing, as well as it was argued that many left in a worse mental state then prior to the experiment. Now some may not be bothered by such an experiment in fact, we have seen other controversial studies such as Mailgrams’ study, where he was studying the conflict between personal conscious, and obedience to authority. Milgram had his subjects administer shocks at what they thought to be at a lethal level. In Milgram’s study, they found individuals who were instructed to give shocks based on how some one answered a question, if they got the question wrong, they were to shock the individual, raising the intensity of the shock, though it was actually a hoax. The person who they believed to be receiving the shocks, were actually acting. When one of the subjects would hesitate in fear of hurting or killing the other person , they would be encouraged to continue. What might be considered more alarming then his actual study, was that at least 65 percent actually administered what they thought to be at a lethal level. (…
In Zimbardo’s experiment, he had two different groups of people, the prisoners and the guards. Zimbardo’s experiment was considered to be a mock prison in the basement of…
The students involved in the Zimbardo Prison Experiment were not cruel people, nor were they truly sadistic. When given the roles as prison guards and prisoners, their behaviors changed dramatically. As prison guards, normally friendly students acted as prison guards under the warden. Under the authority of the guards, the students with the roles of prisoners acted unnaturally and did as the guards told them. Similarly, the soldiers in Germany under Hitler's command did as they were told and acted as they did, not because they were bad people, but because of their positions in German society. They were soldiers and did as a German soldier under Hitler would do. Neither prison guard nor soldier acted aggressively because of their own personalities,…
In order to continue the experiment, deception and manipulation had to be used on the prisoners and their families. The basement was cleaned, rearranged and made presentable for outsiders. The prisoners were groomed, feed a hot meal and warned about not complaining when the families arrived or the visit would be cut short. The families were greeted by Susie the receptionist to keep up appearances and to entertain for an additional thirty minutes as they continued to prepare. Even though the prisoners were only allowed two visitors, for ten minutes while the guards watched, the families left content. Rumors begin to circulate that prisoner 8612 was planning to come back with a crowd and force the release of the remaining prisoners. Zimbardo had no choice but to send the students to another location, in case anyone showed up. Even though no one showed up, someone was going to pay for the hard work that the guards put in. With no surprise, day four came with an increase in humiliation, dehumanization and more unnecessary punishment to the prisoners. On top of regular work, they were forced to shine the guard’s shoes. The guards were taking their roles in the experiment very seriously. They were not tolerating any disrespect and had no problems asserting their superiority over the prisoners. Almost everyone was falling in line and accepting their order except prisoner 819. He did not partipcate in the 6 am count and refused to exercise. Going even further, he trashed his cell and barricaded himself in. He was not punished by himself but also the other prisoners. Eventually, he was thrown into the hole. A priest came to visit, and accessed the situation. Prisoner 819 agreed to meet with him, and broke down. It was so severe that he was taken away to be comforted with food and rest. The priest advised them that their stimulation was very convincing and was similar to a prison with first time offenders. Around 11:30 pm the guards gathered the…
Fake prisoners and fake guards in a spurious jail is a peculiar way to determine roles in society. Philip G. Zimbardo was the mastermind of the Stanford Prison Experiment, which was a psychological experiment that determined the roles of members in a society that became a fiasco (“Philip G. Zimbardo” 1). The experiment left emotional and mental scars on mock-prisoner lives. The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) illustrates the way a person changes when a label and power is all of a sudden given to hoax guards in order to control fraud prisoners.…