Stanford Prison Experiment By Zimbardo

This essay is designed in two parts. The first part of the essay will attempt to explain ethics in a general context and evaluate the reasons why we need ethics when people undertake research. The second part of the essay will focus on the Stanford Prison Experiment, by Zimbardo in 1971 and critically analyse its relation to and impact on ethics.

Ethics is involved in many parts of human life. One example is to guide humans to make decisions (Darwall, 1998). Humans make decisions because these decisions are fundamental in achieving the basic needs, goals or values for living. These decisions could influence our feelings and sensations, i.e., we buy food because we are hungry, we work because we need money to maintain our well being, women
Without research, many questions about certain areas i.e., history, human behaviours, treatment for specific diseases, not only will go unanswered, but research also allows the human world to improve from mistakes. The definition of scientific research is a methodical study that involves a systematic investigation of theories and hypotheses (Humber, 2015). Given that the nature of scientific research is about solving unanswered questions and testing theories for improvement, it is very important that this research is conducted to the highest standards, including morally. That is, if research is not well controlled, errors such as fabricating, falsifying, or misrepresenting data or findings can easily occur, which may jeopardise the participants’ health and safety. Two good examples would be the Nuremberg War Crimes following World War II when captive human subjects were used in gruesome experiments (Smith, 2011) and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study when infected African-American participants were excluded from treatment (Thomas and Quinn,
Rensik (2011) reported that adhering to ethics in research can minimise harm and improve accountability, fairness, as well as honesty in several aspects of research. First, it could promote the aims of research. Second, it made people recognise the values and importance of collaborative work. Third, it ensured that the researchers and the research were accountable to the public. Fourth, it facilitated public support for the research and finally, it protected other important moral and social values, i.e., animal welfare, human rights, confidentiality. In short, applying ethics to scientific research improves the standards of research by providing a set of disciplinary conducts that monitor every stage of research, i.e., method,