Summary: The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment The general topic that the article is addressing is the study of human behavior in terms of aggression in a prison like environment. The purpose of the research is the better understand how close like quarters between superiority of the guards and the suppression of the prisoners develop the underlying motivations of aggression and how to create an effective training design for the Navy guards to eliminate the conflict between the prisoners. The author has a dispositional hypothesis that “the state of the social institution of prison is due to the ‘nature’ of the people who administrate it, or the ‘nature’ of the people who populate it, or both.” (Heney, C., Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P., 1973). In

In short, the experience was negative. As time went on, prisoners tended to be more hostile. And the guards interactions with the prisoners, which could be positive or negative, tended to be extremely dehumanizing and aggressive. Verbal aggression was the most common interaction between prisoners and guards, as it was made clear that physical violence were not allowed. Despite this being only a mock experiment, it had quickly internalized on both subjects. The most dramatic evidence of the impact of this situation upon the participants was seen in the gross reactions of five prisoners who had to be released because of extreme emotional depression, crying, rage, and acute anxiety ( Heney, C., Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P., 1973). The experiment which was originally supposed to be conducted over 1-2 weeks was terminated prematurely after only six days. The remaining prisoners were overjoyed, whereas the guards actually seemed quite upset. It was clear that the guards enjoyed exercising total power over the prisoners, and were never even late to their shifts. Plus, some even volunteered to stay overtime even though they weren’t going to be

Having real guards and real prisoners would be highly credible, and give the pure interaction between the guards and prisoners with physical violence if used at all in the prison. This action would even escalate the problem of the aggression and may contribute to answer the problems on how to change the failure of prisons. From the conclusion of the value of the study it was extremely informative and reflects a lot on how our world works today. In our world, there are multiple uses of power that have control over our lives whether it is us wielding it or others. For instance, working for a boss affects how we act in the environment based on how our boss treats us just like how the prisoners reacted based on the treatment from the guards. If our boss treats us in a hostile manner with complete dominion, it is clear that the employees would want to quit, feel depressed or even create a movement and have a revolt. But if our boss is kind, and treats us nicely, we would do the same for him and thus improve our working conditions. Just like Google where they offer their employees exclusive benefits, from having access to a world class gym, paid leave, to free food, people feel like they have control over their lives and therefore are happy. In general, control can be perceived as highly related to satisfaction and