The Implications of the Stanford Prison Experiment

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The Implications of the Stanford Prison Experiment In 1971 Dr Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment in the basement of Stanford University. This involved imprisoning nine volunteers in a mock up of Stanford prison, which was policed by nine guards (more volunteers). These guards had complete control over the prisoners. They could do anything to the prisoners, but use physical violence. The subjects were all students applying for summer jobs to get some money. To make it a fair test, the subjects were made to take psychological tests to make sure they were mentally fit. On the first day, the prisoner subjects were picked up by a panda car and arrested on a mass crackdown on violations of penal codes. They were arrested like normal suspects are arrested, given their legal rights and searched. They were then taken away in the panda car as many of their neighbours thought that they had actually done something wrong. Then he was given his rights at the station and was fingerprinted. He was then taken to a holding cell to think about what he had done On the second day the guards' behaviour began to degenerate so by the sixth day the experiment was cancelled. Two prisoners were removed from the experiment in this time. The experiment obviously had a serious flaw; this is thought to be Dr Zimbardo's involvement (he acted as the superintendent). This was clear when a prisoner 8612 began to show signs of mental harm Zimdardo believed the prisoner was faking this to try to be released. If Zimbardo had not been involved he would have released him sooner. Another minor problem with the experiment is the definitions of a "good" pers... ... middle of paper ... ...ggests women do not posses this illness. It may be useful to repeat the experiment with female subjects. It would also be interesting to discover how people treat others of the opposite sex; will men restrain from exacting violence on women? (How long will our chauvinistic society last?). A reason for why the environment was so evil was that the prisoners were treated unfairly and the guards were given superiority over the prisoners for no reason. The prisoners and guards were not treated as equals. This would suggest a "good" environment would be one of complete equality, communism. Unfortunately communism only works in theory, as in practice there has always been a Stalin figure, which means there is not equality. If a system of complete equality can be established, it could bring an end to all evil created by man.

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