Stanford Prison Experiment By Philip Zimbardo

Appearances are deceiving, and there’s often a better interpretation of a person by looking at their actions and motives. People can appear good on the outside, but be truly malicious and evil internally. In 1971, Philip Zimbardo, an American psychologist and past president of the American Psychological Association, investigated these reasons for evil through his experiment, called the Stanford Prison Experiment. He randomly picked mentally healthy college students to be play roles as prisoners and guards. Under Zimbardo, who was the warden of the prison, the guards psychologically abused the prisoners. From this, Zimbardo learned that the situation over inherent characteristics was what essentially caused the behavior behind the guards, and
What comes of the making of these groups is the peer pressure that forces a person to commit evil deeds they may not do when they are by themselves. But under a consensus from fellow members, they feel obliged to push towards the same goal. As Zimbardo puts it, human beings are “eager to join in any effort to support… willing to cooperate by doing what we are asked or told to do by leaders we trust” (Aron). The formation of a clique can be seen in The Lottery, where the stoning was led by the leader, Mr. Summers. Under his command “Let’s finish quickly,” the group of people prepared to stone Tessie Hutchinson. No one questioned his order, all with stones in their hands, and even “someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles” (Jackson 7). This reveals the agreement to group together against Tessie, as they all believed she should be stoned. She was picked from the lottery, and she was essentially the odd one out. The Crucible also showed that the witches, the evildoers, formed an in-group to accuse the innocent of their own crimes. Their evil deeds were guided under Abigail, a manipulative and deceptive 17 year-old. Abigail did not want to be punished and wanted “the light of God” (Hawthorne 15); she then
While the in-group is the party that inflicts the evil and harm, the out group is receiving this evil, simply due to the difference in beliefs of each party. They are often “quickly [viewed] as inferior, so that [the in-group] can be readily made to fight them” (Aron). The clique strongly believes that what they are doing is the better and right thing, and anyone who does not join in their effort is an enemy. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne was discriminated for committing adultery. In the strict Puritan community she lived in, her crime was considered extremely heinous, and she was shamed publicly by being forced to wear a large letter on her chest that represented her sin. Her scandalous behavior corresponded with the negativity she received, with women in the community wishing there was a “brand of a hot iron on [her] forehead...and [she] ought to die” (Hawthorne 78). They truly believed that she should be punished greatly, and quickly labeled her as part of the out group. Like Zimbardo explained, the burden of the scarlet letter essentially made Hester viewed as “inferior” (Aron), which caused her to be met with an “irregular procession of stern-browed men and unkindly visaged women” (Hawthorne 83). Hester was shunned from the Puritan society, and she was viewed as the enemy and an extreme disgrace. She was