Stanford prison experiment

Abstract:The Stanford experiment was performed by psychologists Craig Haney, W. CurtisBanks, and Philip Zimbardo. Their goal was to find out how humans deal with a position ofpower and a position of being powerless.. However, even though their experiment ended upwith great results, still, they were not able to finish it and the stanford prison experiment wasclosed after only 6 days. We reporformed the Stanford prison experiment that was done psychologists Craig. We broughtordinary college students and had some agree to be prisoners and the rest used as guards for theprisoners. We made sure to create a prison’s environment where the prisoners were treated likenormal Criminals.

We didn’t train the guards and left them to use their normal behavior. whenfelt that they were given a power, the guards acted in such an abusive manner, on thefirst day of the experiment, prisoners were not completely into their roles and did not take thesituation too seriously. Starting on the second day, the prisoners started to rebell against thegaurds and against being in such an aggressive experiment. 6 out 25 prisoners chose to leave theexperiment. One of the prisoners wanted to leave but he later agreed to stay and acted as a snitchto get more information about the prisoners.The results of this studies make statements abouthuman nature and social psychology and illustrated the influence of deindividuation.

Deindividuation is the process of losing one’s identity and becoming part of a group.

Discussion:All of the participants in this experiment at first were thought to be similar in behaviorbut after one week, all of that changed. The prisoners became passive, dependent, andhelpless. The guards on the other hand were the exact opposite. They became aggressive andabusive within the prison, insulting and bullying the prisoners.

After the experiment was finished, many of the mock guards said that they enjoyedthe power. Others said that they had no idea that they were capable of being so corrupt. Theexperiment showed how the prisoners lost their identity and becoming part of a groupthe prisoners did everything we said to them. They abused each other and no one of those whohave been requested to do it questioned us.

Reference:

Meyer, Philip. “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably.”20 Oct. 1970.

http://www.learntoquestion.com/resources/database/archives/000820.htmlPRUP Participant, California Coalition for Woman Prisoners: