Human experimentation in history: ethical issues and study design

Human Experimentation

The Stanford Prison Experiment

The concept of a human's dual nature and the presence of a darker side of morality has always been a fascinating study throughout history. While Robert Louis Stevenson attributes this Jekyll-Hyde phenomenon to a more repressed desire within the minds of the people, Philip G. Zimbardo takes it to a further step. Both talk about the evils within a person that comes out via prompting (for Stevenson, this is through the use of a mere potion, for Zimbardo, it is because of environmental constraints). Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment is a prime example of such experimentation on duality, a human experiment that -- akin to Jekyll's testing upon himself -- went dreadfully wrong.

The Stanford Prison Experiment sought to explore two types of problems: one was the creation and development of a psychological state within the constructs of a provided physical environment; the other was to observe the perception of a "prison experience" from volunteers with similar character traits, though the volunteers will be split to play different parts (Haney & Zimbardo). The study of the power behind labels such as "prisoner" or "guard" were also observed as secondary issues; how much did labels influence the behavior on the volunteers?

The experiment was held in 1971, spearheaded by Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo, then the Professor of Social Psychology in Stanford University. His environment called for volunteers from around the area, and Zimbardo had chosen 12 students to play "prisoner" as well as 12 students to play "guard," for a total of 24 volunteers. Zimbardo simulated the prison experience by briefing both his guards and prisoners, and began a project that was scheduled to last for two weeks. However, five students had been traumatized enough to shirk from the experiment earlier on, and the soldiers were observed to have become cruel enough that the experiment was called to a complete stop, only a mere six days after its initiation.

Needless to say this abrupt end to the SPE had been due to its unethical treatment of its volunteers (Schwartz). After an observation given by psychology graduate student Christina Maslach, Zimbardo ended the human experiments on the accounts of the poor conditions that the students had been put in. Prior to this end, however, Zimbardo notes that a number of the prisoners had exhibited low self-esteem and hopelessness -- one had gone "crazy" after 36 hours as a prisoner, while several more tried to escape. Likewise, the guards had taken it into their heads to continue with their cruel treatment of prisoners, and when the prison experiment was put to a close, several guards were "unhappy" with the situation (Zimbardo).

If re-enacted in the present day, the SPE would violate various codes of ethics as provided by the American Psychological Association, the Belmont Report, and the Canadian Code of Conduct for Research Involving Humans. The moral grounds of dehumanizing prisoners -- which the prisoners had attested to in interviews -- deemed the entire experiment as questionable. Like the Milgram experiment that took place only a decade before, the SPE has caused a severe tightening of informed consent laws when it comes to volunteering for experiments.

Was the Stanford Prison Experiment helpful in developing studies for the inner workings of the human psyche? To cause this emotional disturbance within the body to gain such results might be more detrimental than helpful. How would conducting this experiment be different to the current situations shown on television? There was an outcry against the Abu Ghraib prison situation, and that itself pulls a likeness to the SPE.