Stanford Prison Experiment The debate over prison systems in the United States has been a long controversy. The question as to; if stuffing a facility full with convicted criminals to be guarded by a flock of civilian employees will foster progress. But a main factor that contributes, is the line between guard and civilian. A guard, while trained, is not a military personal. The power given to them over the lives of others when they are simply a citizen is not normal for everyday citizens. This is one of the things Dr. Phillip Zimbardo wanted to test in his prison experiment at Stanford University, working on staff. Zimbardo created a mock prison in the basement, drawing psychologically fit young gentlemen to see what would happen. In a short …show more content…
They were all charged with armed robbery and burglary, told their legal rights, handcuffed, and shoved into a police to be taken to the police station. There the suspect went through the entire system. According to Zimbardo in his journal, they were booked, warned of their rights, finger-printed, identified, taken to a holding cell and blindfolded until they were transferred to the mock prison. There, each prisoner is brought in to be greeted by the warden one at a time. Being strip searched and then issued a uniform. The uniforms consisted of a dress, and heavy chain for the ankle, sandals, and stocking caps, each crucial to the emasculation and reality of the prison. In addition, prisoners were stripped of their real world identification and given numbers to be identified as. Combined with a disgracing uniform, this made prisoners lose all individuality, especially after having their heads shaved. The guards also were given uniforms. They were given identical uniforms of khaki pants and shirt with a club, a whistle, and most importantly, sunglasses. Sunglasses were so crucial because they made the guards anonymous, a lack of emotion, and promoted their own self-esteem. Guards were given limited training and instructions as well. They weren’t allowed to physically abuse the prisoners, but Zimbardo almost emphasized psychological …show more content…
Apparently #8612 was going to get a gang of friends, come back, and free all of the prisoners. Zimbardo describes his own reactions at the time as one of maintaining security in his prison, instead of observing what would have happened, like a psychologist would do. Zimbardo cleared the prison and waited for the “gang” to show up, but they never did. The rumor proved false and the research team rebuilt the prison. A full day without any data collected. Harassment increased. Pushups were done, prisoners had to clean toilets with their bare hands, and large amounts of humiliation was always in store for the prisoners. #819 was the next prisoner to have a breakdown. After refusing to have a visit with the priest, the guards made the prisoners chant #819. Zimbardo himself tried to calm #819 down, but to no avail. He had a breakdown and wouldn’t stop crying until Zimbardo released him, which he seemed in shock about. Things continually worsened until Zimbardo called off the simulation, saying “enough, we have to end this.” It was ended on only day 6 after intending to go for 2 weeks. Zimbardo had all of the prisoners and guards reconcile afterwards, having everyone discussing the moral conflicts and the alternatives they could have taken. The experiment was finally over.
Conover begins his investigative journey as he goes through the training required to become a prison guard. The process that each potential guard has to graduate from highly resembles that of which the military uses. Perfectly made beds, matching uniforms, roll calls, shooting practice, and psychological tests are all engrained into the schedules of potential guards. When this realizations strikes the author he says, “It dawned on me that I had reported to boot camp.” The emphasis on uniformity and discipline clearly showed the correlation those who controlled prisons saw between the prisons and warzones. The rhetoric is nearly identical as well, as evidenced by the “sergeant” who states,” The gray uniforms are the god guys, and the green uniforms are ...
Inmates returning from an exercise yard in the late afternoon overwhelmed correctional staff and seized hostages. Inmates were reportedly upset about overcrowding and suspended privileges. They set fires, which destroyed more then half of the 31 buildings and took hostages who were not only guards but also other inmates who were not willing to join in the rioting. The riot ended through negotiations and the inmates were confined to their cells. The superintendent informed news and officials that the riot was over. The next day the superintendent met with the inmates to discuss their grievances. Unknown to the superintendent or staff many of the cells which the inmates were confined to were not secure permitting the start of a second riot later that day allowing prisoners to escape and take more then 17 more hostages and injuring 138 officers. About 800 troopers were on the scene during the peak of the riots with hundreds more en route to begin shift changes as the riots continued for a 3 day period. Negotiations were again attempted, but the riot finally ended when state police forcibly entered the compound.
Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). Revisiting the Sanford Prison Experiment: A lesson in the power of
The Stanford Prison Experiment commenced in 1973 in pursuit of Zimbardo needed to study how if a person are given a certain role, will they change their whole personality in order to fit into that specific role that they were given to. Zambrano significantly believed that personality change was due to either dispositional, things that affect personal life and make them act differently. Or situational, when surrounded by prisoners, they can have the authority to do whatever they want without having to worry about the consequences. Furthermore, it created a group of twenty-four male participants, provided them their own social role. Twelve of them being a prisoners and the other twelve prison guards, all of which were in an examination to see if they will be able to handle the stress that can be caused based upon the experiment, as well as being analysis if their personality change due to the environment or their personal problems.
Imagine that king have the power the control everything, and his man’s word can change his decision to treat his citizens. King will do everything to make himself satisfied, and people have no right than listen to what he say. Just as the King has the authority to control people; guards can do whatever they want to the prisoner, even though it will hurt them. In the movie, Zimbardo give power to the guards to use force to control prisoner, and wear sunglass and uniform to show their power against prisoner. Since the guard hide their feeling with the sunglasses, they keep on punish the prisoners, and take away their bed. Prisoners start to feel harsh to live in this place and want to protest, in order to get their right. It can clearly show that guards’ authority change their personality and they keep on torture these prisoners. In addition, living in a place which has no daylight and suffers every day, prisoners started to mental break down, and lose sense of time. Living without freedom and control by other will really affect prisoners’
Subjects became so entranced in these roles that the guards started to behave as if they really were the guards of a true prison. Zimbardo had told them to think of themselves in this way and it led to the guards mentally abusing the prisoners with their cruel and degrading ro...
To begin the experiment the Stanford Psychology department interviewed middle class, white males that were both physically and mentally healthy to pick 18 participants. It was decided who would play guards and who would be prisoners by the flip of a coin making nine guards and nine prisoners. The guards were taken in first to be told of what they could and could not do to the prisoners. The rules were guards weren’t allowed t o physically harm the prisoners and could only keep prisoners in “the hole” for a hour at a time. Given military like uniforms, whistles, and billy clubs the guards looked almost as if they worked in a real prison. As for the prisoners, real police surprised them at their homes and arrested them outside where others could see as if they were really criminals. They were then blindfolded and taken to the mock prison in the basement of a Stanford Psychology building that had been decorated to look like a prison where guards fingerprinted, deloused, and gave prisoners a number which they would be calle...
Zimbardo acts like an eye in the sky knowing what happens to everyone and the outside voice is neutral. Zimbardo does not have limit on what he saying, so this makes him the expert. The voice is more like to fill in the blanks and therefore it reverts the attention to Zimbardo as the voice of knowledge. The guard and the prisoner seem to have a lot to say but in reality they do not, Zimbardo does most of the speaking. They are both included for the emotional aspect of the experiment and make it seem more interesting. Zimbardo also expresses emotions but a lot less than the two emotional appeals and tries to keep a curiosity tone towards the part he explains how he should have not been playing a role in the prison. That’s where we have another logos attempt. He “should have of had a collage looking overseeing the experiment”. Someone who could have ended the experiment or if he was main researcher he should not have had role in
It was tough. At 6:00 AM they would get up for inspection. They would work out in all types of weather, including rain, snow and the scorching sun. They were also fed soup, but it was spoiled and nasty. The men there were starving and there was nothing they could do about it.. They were served a half a rations which contributed to their starving. The leader of the camp, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, or his nickname The Bird. He was evil. He hit people for doing nothing and then he would hit them for doing something. Louie was his favorite person to torture. He would hit, then regret and say sorry. Later he would hit him again, and not say sorry. Louie was selected to go into Tokyo, and say that he was doing good and that the conditions were as good as can be while imprisoned. They wanted him to do another broadcast that trashed the U.S. Louie refused and he was sent back to Ofuna. The Bird was promoted, and Louie and the others had a party. The new warden gave out the red cross boxes, instead of stealing them like The
The guards also developed the mentality that they could make the prisoner do what they want and that they were like puppets. The mob mentality of the guards was not taken lightly by the prisoners, that same mob mentality of the guards lead the prisoners to also develop a mob mentality that they wanted to make the guard's jobs as hard as they could by starting a rebellion. In the climax of the film, one guard picks on prisoner 8612 which lead 8612 to reach his limit and attack the guard out of anger, the guard that was attacked acted on sheer instinct and hit prisoner 8612 which broke Phillip Zimbardo’s one and only rule. This lead to an uprising and rebellion from the prisoners, the prisoners all developed a plan to escape and some of the prisoner were even barricading themselves in their own cells. (The Stanford
The prisoners would have to sleep on hard wooden or brick barracks. These would be filled with up to 700 other men and women . They also carried some diseases as they were very unsanitary. The prisoners would also only get a small amount to eat each day. As they lacked nutrition it often led to death.
Philip George Zimbardo is an American psychologist whose most famous work is the prison study, “Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison”, in 1973. This experiment has had an exceptional change in social psychology. In this experiment Zimbardo, Banks, and Haney set out to create a mock prison in order to record and analyze the environment on a person’s overall social behavior as well as how the sample would react socially to being guards or prisoners. Because of the unexpected nature of this experiment, there was no hypothesis formulated (Banks Haney Zimbardo, 1973, p. 72).
Philip Zimbardo is a prominent American psychologist who investigates the character trait of evil and how people turn to evil. Zimbardo was a professor at Stanford University as well as a past president of the American Psychological Association. He conducted the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. In the experiment, mentally healthy college students were randomly selected as prisoners and guards. The experiment was ultimately a failure as two prisoners left midway through the experiment because the guards had psychologically abused the prisoners under the warden of the prison, Zimbardo. After the test, Zimbardo came to the conclusion that the situation over personal characteristics had caused the ruthless behavior of the guards. Group pressure also caused the dictatorial activity of the guards, as each member of the group pressured each other to harass the seemingly weak prisoners. Zimbardo’s idea that the doers of evil consists of people who support
There were countless times, prisoners were having meltdowns and needed to be seen by doctors. Instead, Zimbardo continued his study to further his findings, even when told by a graduate student that they have enough footage to answer the original question they set out to answer. When prisoners were physically hurt by the guards, Zimbardo egged on the experiment by stating, “let’s see what happens.” In addition, in a way, Zimbardo encouraged the violence by scolding the guards when they were unable to keep the peace in the
A group of volunteers is divided into guardians and prisoners in a simulated jail. The guards slip into uniforms complete with night sticks, whistles, and handcuffs, while the prisoners strip down to nothing but shirts and trade in their names for numbers. The university basement is turned into a panopticon: the guards are overseeing the prisoners while the scientists are watching everything on video screens. In a fascist reality, surveillance is everywhere: complete control. Both groups are exhorted to follow the rules: the prisoners must obey, and the guards are to maintain peace and order. No matter what, there is to be no violence. Everybody's still cracking jokes, but some men are wearing boots and others flip-flops.... Tarek, the lead in the movie, a taxi driver with a hidden agenda is cell mates with two others. Tarek is not only participating for the money the guinea pigs are to receive for their participation; he is a journalist looking for a story. A story that might give him a break into the company he worked for. He ridicules the guards and inspires a playful prison riot in order to get a good story, this accelerates the effects of the prison immensely.