Preview

If I Was A Prisoner In The Stanford Prison Experiment

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
525 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
If I Was A Prisoner In The Stanford Prison Experiment
If you were placed in the same situation as the participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment, how do you think you would react? If I was placed in this experiment, I think, would react differently whether I was a guard or a prisoner. If I was a guard I think conform more to the group influence because of the effect of having the power over someone else. I think that it would be easy to get caught up in having all the power in this experiment. However I think my attitude would be different If I was a prisoner in the experiment. If I was a prisoner, I would try to follow the rules given by the guards and try to be the ideal prisoner. While, I would try to follow the rules I don’t think I could continue being able to submit with the guard

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Stanford Prison Experiment was an experiment that Philip Zimbardo evented. He wanted to study the human response of captivity, of the prison life. Zimbardo randomly assigned roles to the prisoners and the guards. Each role was uniquely identified. For example, he gave the guards sticks and sunglasses and the prisoners were arrested by the police department and were forced into the basement of the jail which was converted into the psychology department that was converted into a makeshift jail. Zimbardo wanted the experiment to be as realistic as he possibly could have made it, therefore, he assigned each role to help do so. Testing each individual and then assigning them to roles would of gave inconclusive readings and therefore, it was…

    • 164 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    When people are given little to no direction or training, and are faced with dealing with people they may perceive as a threat to their own safety and the well-being of others, they have a propensity to overstep what most would consider reasonable behavior. The “guards” in the experiment were put into a position of authority and took the steps they deemed necessary to maintain order. In spite of the fact that they knew it was an experiment, they were immersed in the situation and played the role given them. The “prisoners” played their part and were so wholly immersed in the role and the environment that their entire perspective of reality was altered. They began to believe they were helpless and unable to help themselves out of the situation they found themselves. They had become powerless to change the situation, in spite of the fact that it was just an…

    • 1846 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    While assessing the Stanford Prison Simulation encounter, I noticed a lot of ethical issues that stemmed from the Psychologist researchers and the guards as well. First and foremost, there were no clear instructions as to what the guards should do to get results for the research and there were no adamant clear instructions as to what the guards could not do to the prisoner’s. The purpose of research is to measure data and its outcome, and ensuring the protection and safety of the subjects involved in the research study. Allowing the continuance of the prisoner’s humiliations, distress, and the abuse of power from the guards, was ethically inappropriate and incorrect. It is morally and ethically incorrect to watch behind the scenes, while such malice intent was being performed and negatively affecting all participants, including the researchers, during the research process and after the study was pulled. Prisoner’s were made to feel as though they could not leave the simulated prison and taunted by the other fellow prisoner’s and guards as well. Imagine being distressed, taunted, and being bribed…

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1971, psychologist Phillip Zimbardo set out to create an experiment that looked at the impact of becoming a prisoner or a prison guard. The experiment was to test human behavior when one's role had been altered into authoritative one. Still powerful after all these years the experiment was the most powerful and popular experiment of all time (O'Toole, K). Researches set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University building. There were the 24 students out of 70 volunteers chosen to play the roles of the prisoners or prison guards.…

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My first impression from watching the film was the relationship between the study’s prisoners and guards seemed friendly at first. Though they’re encouraged by Zimbardo and his associates to take the experiment seriously and to invest themselves fully in their roles, the subjects initially still understand that they’re not really in a prison but then, the experiment takes a turn when a guard named Christopher Archer begins to embrace a meaner personality one, in which I suspect from watching the experiment, is not his normal demeanor but, rather, a more boosted version of himself of which he perceives to be his role. Archer introduces an element of meanness to the proceedings, altering the prisoners’ mindset the prisoners start to feel dehumanization…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    4) If you were a prisoner, would you have been able to endure the experience? What would you have done differently than those subjects did? If you were imprisoned in a "real" prison for five years or more, could you take…

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Stanford Experiment is a study of experimental psychology conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971 on the effects of the prison situation. It was created with students playing the roles of guards and prisoners. It was intended to study the behavior of ordinary people in such a context and effect was to show that this was the situation rather that the personality of the participants who was at the origin of behaviours sometimes opposite the values professed by participants before the start of the study.…

    • 264 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Stanford Prison Experiment began just like any other, with a general question: “Would a negative environment would be able to control…

    • 176 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Phillip K. Zimbardo, who is a professor of psychology at Stanford University, directed the Stanford Prison Experiment, also known as the Zimbardo Experiment. The goal of the Zimbardo experiment was to research how willing human beings would imitate to the characters of correctional officers and inmates in an acting role that replicated life behind bars. But what really happens when you remove the freedoms of human beings and place them in subservient positions and place them in jail cell type settings? The answer is that the mind and physical well-being is drastically and forever changed for the worse, which Mr. Zimbardo’s tests proved.…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    While the Stanford Prison Experiment was originally expected to last 14 days, it had to be stopped after just six due to what was happening to the student participants. The guards became abusive, and the prisoners began to show signs of extreme stress and anxiety. While the prisoners and guards were allowed to interact in any way they wanted, the interactions were hostile or even dehumanizing.…

    • 1492 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zimbardo Prison Eperiment

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The experiment took place in the basement of the Psychology department in Stanford University and selected 24 undergraduate students out of 70 volunteers due to their lack of psychological issues and had no criminal record. Zimbardo paid each of the 24 participants 15 dollars a day in a span of one to two weeks. The 24 volunteers were randomly assigned to play a role as either a guard or a prisoner. The cell was made up of three prison cells, each one holding three mock prisoners. The guards chosen had to work in an eight hour shift alongside two other participants. The guards chosen have their own cell to themselves and one small room for solitary confinement. Kendra Cherry stated in her article that, “According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrates the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior” (Cherry). The volunteers for this experiments took on their role almost instantaneously.…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even "good" people can be beaten down by conditions, such as those simulated in the experiment, to a point where they are no longer sure of their own identity. If anything, this experiment should have taught players in the criminal justice system just how desperately prison reform is needed. Sadly, conditions such as these continue to persist and have even been the cause of recent controversy as seen in the instances of Abu Ghrab and Guantanamo Bay prisons.…

    • 641 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Experiments have been done for many more years than humans can count on the two hands in which they possess. Two experiments, in particular, were written, “The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip G. Zimbardo and “The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram. These experiments can be controversial for many different reasons, but neither of these experiments were completed under conditions of normality. The information collected in these experiments isn’t exactly based off of real life situations, it becomes difficult not to question the relevance of these experiments.…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zimbardo

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Stanford County Prison experiment by Zimbardo (1971) supports Milgram’s study. Zimbardo (1973) experiment took place in a pretend prison house which was created in the basement of Stanford University. This was to investigate the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner/prison guard. Participants in both studies had a difficult time ending the experiment. The participants felt they did not want to appear inconsistent or leave the experiment. Participant’s behaviour was in control by social/professional forces and environmental contingences, rather than their own personality traits or character power.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Fake prisoners and fake guards in a spurious jail is a peculiar way to determine roles in society. Philip G. Zimbardo was the mastermind of the Stanford Prison Experiment, which was a psychological experiment that determined the roles of members in a society that became a fiasco (“Philip G. Zimbardo” 1). The experiment left emotional and mental scars on mock-prisoner lives. The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) illustrates the way a person changes when a label and power is all of a sudden given to hoax guards in order to control fraud prisoners.…

    • 1435 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays