Stanford Prison Experiment, Essay Example

In the Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, 1971), viewers can witness how evil environment makes good people bad. By being assigned the role of either a prisoner or a guard, participants took on the characteristics of their roles based on their readings, experiences, and common beliefs of the society. One particular guard believed he had to show power through violence and abuse, while others automatically accepted his authority, and refused to intervene. Likewise, ring leaders were created among the prisoners, and they were accepted as the voice of the small group. One interesting thing about the experiment was that there was no solidarity between the prisoners, and they also accepted the views of the guards, instead of standing up for each other.

Zimbardo (2008) states that in the end of the experiment guards were feeling guilty for abusing prisoners or not preventing abuse, while prisoners felt humiliated. When he asked for an insight from a psychologist, Christina Maslach, to conduct interviews, he realized that he was taking a double role of the researcher and the prison manager, and he should have let another person take on the role of managing participants. He realized that he harmed individuals who voluntarily took part in the experiment, in order to study their coping mechanisms.

In the Stanford Prison Experiment website (Zimbardo, n.d.), the author states that the main question psychologists should find answers to is “how to change our institutions so that they promote human values rather than destroy them”. Therefore, in order to prevent causing harm, the researcher should have put measures in place to support participants, prevent cruelty, and promote human values (Haney et al. 1973). In an environment where there is no sense of time or information about the rest of the society, values are often rewritten based on the situation.

References

Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). Study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Reviews, 9(1-17).

The Stanford Prison Experiment. (2011) Video. Retrieved from     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=760lwYmpXbc&feature=youtu.be

Zimbardo, P. (n.d.) Stanford Prison Experiment. Website. Retrieved from http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/42