Verified Document

Stanford Prison Experiment Was To Examine The Essay

¶ … Stanford Prison experiment was to examine the psychological and sociological effects of incarceration. In particular, researchers set out to examine how prisoners reacted to being bereft of power. Ultimately the experiment illustrated not just how prisoners reacted to being powerless, but also how simulated guards reacted to being bestowed with nearly unlimited power over others. The experiment was therefore exploratory in nature. Shuttleworth (2008) claims that the researcher Zimbardo "wanted show the dehumanization and loosening of social and moral values that can happen to guards immersed in such a situation." The object of the experiment was "to create an experiment that looked at the impact of becoming a prisoner or prison guard," (Cherry, n.d.). The research had a focus, but its focus was relatively open-ended in terms of specific hypothesized relationships between dependent and independent variables. Zimbardo (2012) reflects on the experiment and claims it was a "dramatic demonstration of the power of the situation on human behavior." He was also "interested...

The Stanford prison experiment is still talked about today not just because of its findings related to psychology and sociology but also for its implications for research methodology and ethics. Ethical codes related to informed consent arise, as "no one knew what, exactly, they were getting into," (Ratnesar, 2011). Moreover, the experiment went on long after participants were being harmed. "For six days, half the study's participants endured cruel and dehumanizing abuse at the hands of their peers," (Ratnesar, 2011). Ratnesar (2011) explains, "the participants "were taunted, stripped naked, deprived of sleep and forced to use plastic buckets as toilets." The experimental conditions and methodology would never be permissible with a current board of ethics in any credible research institution.
3. The Stanford prison experiment is certainly fascinating at face value and in spite of its ethical problems. Reflecting on the experiment several decades later, Zimbardo (2012) states…

Sources used in this document:
References

Cherry, K. (n.d.). The Stanford prison experiment. About.com. Retrieved online: http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/stanford-prison-experiment.htm

Leithead, A. (2011). Stanford prison experiment continues to shock. BBC News. Retrieved online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14564182

Ratnesar, R. (2011). The menace within. Stanford Magazine. Retrieved online: http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2011/julaug/features/spe.html

Shuttleworth, M. (2008). Stanford prison experiment. Retrieved online: http://www.experiment-resources.com/stanford-prison-experiment.html
Zimbardo, P.G. (2012). Stanford prison experiment. Retrieved online: http://www.prisonexp.org/
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Human Aggression and the Stanford Prison Experiments
Words: 2535 Length: 8 Document Type: Essay

Human Aggression and the Stanford Prison Experiments Studies of human aggression tend toward myriad and often competing conclusions about that which drives us to behave ethically or unethically, about the forces that incline us toward altruism as opposed to those which incline us toward aggression, about the impulses to behave according to internal values and the pressures to bend to contextual authority. Perhaps few studies on the subject have penetrated the

Prison the Modern Prison System Represents a
Words: 1303 Length: 4 Document Type: Essay

Prison The modern prison system represents a macrocosmic understanding of how to punish the collective sins of society. Within any environment, the strength of its contents is a direct reflection on the worst of its contents as well. The importance of the cathartic rehabilitation that occurs during learning, growth, understanding and forgiveness dictates how one would be rehabilitated in any system, prison or not. The sheer numbers of prisoners within the

Classic Social Psychology Experiments
Words: 5609 Length: 16 Document Type: Term Paper

Social Psychology Studies: Explaining Irrational Individual Behavior by Understanding Group Dynamics Social psychology is, as its name suggests, a science that blends the fields of psychology, which is the study of the individual, and sociology, which is the study of groups. Social psychology examines how the individual is influenced by the group. It looks at the influence of group or cultural norms on individual behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. However, because group

Ethical Problem Three Classical Behavior
Words: 1044 Length: 3 Document Type: Term Paper

more tactically satisfactory mothers in the form of cloth giving no food. Other young monkeys were given a choice between wire mothers that did not provide food and cloth mothers who did give food. A second control group was given normal mothers. Unsurprisingly, the monkeys all preferred the cloth surrogates, whether they gave food or not, under most circumstances. They study concluded that if simulated adequately, surrogate motherhood was

Psychology - Human Interaction the
Words: 1059 Length: 4 Document Type: Thesis

By that time, several guards had become sadistic and the behavior of the prisoners provided clear indications of psychological breakdown. Interviews with study participants suggested that merely the perception of their respective roles influenced their behavior. More importantly, the groupthink that prevailed within the group of prison guards overcame any individual personal reluctance they may have had to treat their prisoners so harshly (Macionis 2003). The Significance of the

Ethical Dimensions of the Innovator Role
Words: 717 Length: 2 Document Type: Essay

Ethics is a term that is commonly used to refer to appropriate rules of conduct or moral guidelines that govern people’s behaviors and actions. Additionally, ethics is a terms that refers to standards or norms for differentiating between right and wrong (Center for Innovation in Research and Teaching, n.d.). As a result, ethics has become an important component in research because researchers have a moral responsibility to safeguard their research

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now