Why Is The Stanford Prison Experiment Unethical

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Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment is a widely debated topic if the so-called experiment was ethical or unethical. There experiment was supposed to last two full weeks and ended up being cut short due to an outside source thinking the experiment was horrible. The experiment was compared to a real prison but just ran by psychologists. With I would consider the experiment unethical for multiple reasons. In the Stanford Prison Experiment, the participants were checked for physical and psychological health. There was well planned out “experiment” were the goals were made clear to the participants when Zimbardo himself explained what was expected. They were also given a waiver that they had to sign making it even more clear. There was an unexpected result. The participants that were randomly selected as guards ended up taking on their prisoner roles very seriously. The guard participants started developing more abusive behaviors almost immediately. Even the prisoner participants were being unethical as they were willing to let one of their own stay in isolation instead of losing their blankets. There was also a prisoner who eventually was released and was planning to break the other ones out. The only thing …show more content…

In my opinion, there was a definite benefit to doing the experiment. Although, the participants of the Stanford Prison Experiment went through trauma during the six days; the video we watched said they learned a lot about themselves and they didn’t have long term effects. Although, when the participates met with each other year later they still took on their roles to some extent. The guard male was more dominant than the prison male in their conversation. According to the participants, some even benefitted from the experiment in the long run because they learned about

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