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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...
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…
Resources
Haney, C. & Zimbardo, P.G., "The past and future of the U.S. prison policy: Twenty-five years after the Stanford Prison Experiment," 1998. American Psychologist, 53, 709-727. http://www.prisonexp.org/pdf/ap1998.pdf
Schwartz, J. "Simulated prison in '71 showed a fine line between 'normal' and 'monster,' May 6, 2004. New York Times, p. A.20. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/international/middleeast/06PSYC.html?ex=1399262400&en=91f8144cdf7dd44a&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
Zimbardo, P.G., The Stanford Prison Experiment, 1999. Web site: http://www.prisonexp.org/links.htm
Participants in the study did receive a psychological testing battery but in the study it is reported that scores were not known until the close of the experiment. This may mean that the aggressive behavior seen in the experiment was not due to the effect of the situation on the person, but rather the interaction of the person in the situation. Members of the study staff (minus Dr. Zimbardo,
In the second phase, members previously identified based on their professional industry environment outlined in the Delimitations section of this proposal will be assigned to different groups and presented with situations requiring them either to express their personal beliefs, determinations, opinions, and decisions knowing that theirs differs substantially from the consensus of their groups' or to suppress their genuine reactions and adopt perceptions and positions with which they disagree for
Since they were conducted, the American Psychological Association (APA) has established rules and strict guidelines for ethical experimentation that would not allow the kind of deception used at that time. In both experiments, the subjects experienced numerous after-effects including depression, anxiety, and tremendous guilt and they received psychological counselling afterwards. In the case of the Zimbardo experiment, it is understandable why the prisoners would have suffered from the experience, but
Experimental Critique You have just answered an advertisement to participate in an experiment from researchers at Yale University. You enter a professional looking building and are met by a professional looking man in a white lab coat. You have been paid $4.50 (which would have easily filled up your gas tank in 1961) to participate in a memory and learning experiment. The experiment requires that you play the role of "teacher"
Meanwhile on the subject of obedience, an article in American Psychologist (written by the former research assistant to Milgram at Yale University) poses the following question: if Milgram's experiments / research were conducted today, in 2009, "would people still obey… " (Elms, 2009, p. 34). The answer given in most cases by Elms is that "…a current measure of obedience to destructive authority would find substantially less obedience than
In this interpretation Heitler accepts the modified Copenahgenist observer created reality, but adds that the act of observation dissolves the barrier between observer and the observed. The observer is a necessary part of the whole. Once observed, the object is now an inseparable part of the observer (Bleuler). Arntz addresses this bridge between the observer, the observer, and reality by asking "why aren't we magicians?"; indeed, if we create