Summary Of The Stanford Prison Study

The stanford prison study began on Sunday, August 17, 1971. This study was performed by a famous psychologist named Phil Zimbardo, his goal was to investigate psychological effects on humans in captivity to see if it had to do with their personality and nature, or if it was because of the environment they were in. There were seventy five people that volunteered to take part in this study and some were randomly assigned to be a prison guard, and others the actual prisoners. This study was done by a study group with college students in the basement of the psychology department Stanford university. There were times throughout the study that demonstrated immunization within the prisoners. Some of these actions included stripping them naked, making
This study was meant to last two weeks but only lasted six days. The researchers sat and watched taking note of what was happening, some prisoners reacted violently while others became emotional. These actions were found to be dehumanizing to the prisoners in the study, and thus why this study is still known and talked about today. The American Psychological Association looked into this study and came to a conclusion that this act was not ethical. Zimbardo realized what he had done was a behavioral research that was dehumanizing towards humans and cannot ever be done again and felt ashamed for his actions. His main point of the study was to see how individuals would adapt when being put into a situation where they are consequently, helpless.
In the article about video games in correlation to dehumanization, they found that video games that are about violence and aggression
Such as acts like rape, murder, or torture, anything that is cruel or unusual punishment. This can lead to an increased level of violence, war crimes, genocide, and even human right violations. Other times besides the stanford prison act where actions have led to dehumanization is when the holocaust took place from 1939-1945. During this time period many people were taken to concentration camps, starved to death, not given any water, and were overworked. These actions were dehumanizing to the jews which were innocent. Terrorism, is also a dehumanizing act in which someone is trying to cause destruction and even killing part of a population. There have been many terrorist attacks in which innocent humans are killed which is dehumanizing towards