Stanford Prison Experiment

What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These were the questions that Professor Philip G. Zimbardo asked when starting his prison experiment. This topic is important because experiments such as the Stanford Prison Experiment can cause psychological issues in those who participate. For those who may not know, the Stanford experiment was an experiment to see how people would react in an evil environment. This environment entailed a prison set-up and the subjects had roles of either a prisoner or a prison guard. It got started when Zimbardo added this job opportunity in the newspaper. 24 college students, all of them being male, were chosen out of 70+ candidates and half ended up being the guards and the other half, the prisoners. These students were getting paid 15$ a day to participate in this study. It took place in 1971 in the basement of the Stanford Psychology Department.

The Stanford Prison Experiment has been a widely talked about experiment, so the one person who can say the most about it is the one who experienced it all, the one and only Philip G. Zimbardo himself. His article, THE STORY: AN OVERVIEW OF THE EXPERIMENT, explains everything and anything that happened during the time period of this experiment. . Stanford Prison Experiment by Saul McLeod furthermore adds insights and summarizes what happened during this experiment and also added parts of interviews of the students and Zimbardo as well. Moreover, The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment, by Maria Konnikova refutes the idea of what actually happened and states that it was a very manipulated environment. These sources will be helpful in explaining whether or not the Stanford Prison Experiment had any psychological effects on the students. In what follows, my main focus will be on this issue and also to address the questions that Zimbardo asked.

When cramming 16-20 people into a small room with no way out, it can lead to some serious tension. Because of these conditions, many inhumane actions were made from the guards. It began right when they were admitted into the prison. Each prisoner was humiliated as they were searched, stripped naked, and then dosed in a disinfectant spray. They were then given their uniforms which including a dress/smock with no undergarments, a chain that was placed on their right ankles, and a stocking cap made from a woman's nylon stocking.

This is relevant to the claim because no one deserves to wear chains and people deserve to have some respect and being forced to wear dresses with no underwear and chains is degrading to these students. The reason for doing this is because they “were trying to create a functional simulation of a prison.” While real prisoners don’t wear dresses, they were trying to establish the feeling of humiliation. Real men feel humiliated and emasculated, so they wanted that effect as soon as possible. Not only were they treated terribly as the experiment started, but it progressed and got worse as it went on. The guards further abused the prisoners by rudely awakening them in the early hours of the morning, usually around 2:30 a.m. The reason for waking them up was to do counts so they know that all the prisoners are there. They did this so the prisoners lose their identities. They had to become familiarized with their ID numbers and if they messed up their numbers then they would have to repeat the whole process over and over again until all of them got it right. Furthermore, the guards gave unnecessary punishment such as doing push-ups. About 95% of the time the punishment wasn’t for doing something bad but because the guards had the authority to make them do it. Because of these actions, the prisoners were fed up, their reaction was to rebel and try to get out of the prison. It ultimately failed. The guards caught them, and they ended up being more inhumane. They stripped the inmates, took their beds, and the leader was thrown in solitary confinement (a very little closet). This stunt added for more cruelty from the guards such as more menial, repetitive work such as cleaning toilets with bare hands. This is relevant to the claim as well because constantly being harassed and ridiculed can lead to different changes in behavior and attitude towards things.

The prisoners were greatly affected by this experiment because of the actions from the guards. Within 36 hours of the experiment starting, Prisoner #8612 began suffering from acute emotional disturbance, disorganized thinking, uncontrollable crying and rage. This was because of the mental abuse that these inmates are enduring from the guards. It really took a toll on them. Prisoner #8612 began acting crazy and he was cursing and screaming. Soon it became too much to the point where they had release him. After this debacle, about half of the prisoners were released early due to severe emotional or cognitive reactions. The actions from the guards caused the prisoners to reach their limit. The guards had one rule: do not physically hurt the prisoners. That rule was broken, and Zimbardo did nothing as it happened. He wanted to see how it would escalate. This pushed everyone over the edge. The simulation became so real, and the guards became so abusive, that the experiment had to be shut down after only 6 days rather than the two weeks planned.

Some people, however, believe that the outcomes of the experiment were not phycological but based off the subjects’ personalities. From the beginning, Konnikova believed that “the Stanford County Prison was a heavily manipulated environment, and the guards and prisoners acted in ways that were largely predetermined by how their roles were presented.” This states that the goal of the experiment was to evoke the experiences of living and working in a brutal jail. Furthermore, a research paper proposed that self-selection might have influenced the outcomes of the Stanford Prison Experiment because the sort of people who would volunteer for a study on prison life might have distinctive personality traits that might influence them to abusive behavior. So, really the students involved already had abusive traits and allowing them to take charge in this situation heightened their attitudes and behavior.

Overall, in this experiment, the evil did triumph and it took over as we have seen in the actions of the guards. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological experiment that not only worked but worked so well that it had to end early. The guards became so abusive and went overboard which caused emotional stress to many of the inmates and created an inhumane environment. Now I leave you with this question, knowing what you know, would you participate in this experiment for some extra cash?