Compare And Contrast The Milgram Experiment And The Stanford Prison Experiment

This article concerns the Stanford Prison experiment carried out in 1971 at Stanford University. The experiment commenced on August 14, and was stopped after only six days. It is one of the most noted psychological experiments on authority versus subordinates. The studies which emerged from this have been of interest to those in prison and military fields due to its focus on the psychology associated with authority.

Stanford Prison Experiment is a popular experiment among social science researchers. In 1973, a psychologist named Dr. Philip Zimbardo wants to find out what are the factors that cause reported brutalities among guards in American prisons. His aim was to know whether those reported brutalities were because of the personalities of the guards or the prison environment. However, during the experiment, things get muddled unexpectedly. The experiment became controversial since it violates some ethical standards while doing the research.

By providing the officers with almost unlimited authority to establish their own rules and do what they desired, except for being physically aggressive with the prisoners, the guards felt entitled to their power and believed that none of the participants, especially the prisoners, could intervene with their new status. Not only did the uniform and rules allow the officers to genuinely believe the high authority and influence they had, but the prisoners as well. By providing the guards with a similar uniform as an officer including a whistle, a club, and sunglasses, it allowed both groups to match their descriptions of their representative heuristics, or the idea of categorizing an individual based on our mental representations of that group, permitting both groups of participants to fulfill their roles more correspondingly. If the officers had not been provided with this drastic change of mannerism, it would have been harder for both groups to take the experiment as seriously. Additionally, cohesiveness allowed the officers to come together and form a larger force compared to working independently. In union, the officers were able to achieve their goal: demand obedience from the prisoners and further the power they had over them. This effect even caused a misperception of numerous officer’s height as many of the prisoners perceived them as being taller than them even though they were very similar in height. This mistaken perspective showed the prisoners illusory correlation, the idea that a relationship between two variables exist when in reality there is none, as the prisoners correlated two items that cannot be associated accurately: height and personality. In other words, the prisoners believed because the officers were more aggressive and a had a

The understanding that some people are good or bad widespread all over the world.” The evil comes from human history and continue until today” and even today this statement has existed. Moreover, when people want to explain why people do some evil acts, the discussion often end with words like “people initially are born evil”. However, some other people argued that people are born good. Because of these many critics has debates such as: are people born bad, good or just like naked board without any morality.

In 1971, Philip Zimbardo set out to conduct an experiment to observe behavior as well as obedience. In Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment, many dispute whether it was obedience or merely conforming to their predesigned social roles of guards and prisoners that transpired throughout the experiment. Initially, the experiment was meant to test the roles people play in prison environment; Zimbardo was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards, disposition, or had more to do with the prison environment. This phenomenon has been arguably known to possibly influencing the catastrophic similarities which occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.The

The Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971 illustrated the direct relationship between power of situations and circumstances to shape an individual’s behavior. During this study 24 undergraduates were grouped into roles of either a Prisoner or a Guard, the study was located in a mock correctional facility in the basement of Stanford University. Researchers then observed the prisoners and guards using hidden cameras. The study was meant to last two weeks. However, the brutality of the Guards and the suffering of the Prisoners was so intense that it had to be terminated after only six days. During this period, Zimbardo observed the radical change in the personalities of the participants embodying the role of the prison guard, as they changed from ordinary young men to men with a vicious and sadistic character. Zimbardo stated that he was trying to portray what transpired when all of the individuality and dignity was stripped away from a human, and their life was completely controlled. He wanted to demonstrate the dehumanization and loosening of social and moral values that can happen to guards immersed in such a situation (“Stanford Prison Experiment”). This experiment has been used to exemplify the cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority. In addition, the findings advocate the situational explanation of behavior rather than the dispositional one.

Philip Zimbardo questioned, “What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph?” (Zimbardo, 1971) In 1971 a psychologist named Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment on the effects prison has on young males with the help of his colleague Stanley Milgram. They wanted to find out if the reports of brutality from guards was due to the way guards treated prisoners or the prison environment. Zimbardo offered $15 per day for two weeks to take part in the experiment. The experiment was held in the basement of Stanford University Psychology building; they turned it into a mock prison.

Many controversial events have occurred throughout time; for example, Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in the mid-20th century is one of many occasions where humans have failed to stay moral. The themes represented in both Lord of the Flies and the Stanford Prison Experiment reflect upon malicious intentions when given superiority. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a group of British boys being evacuated by plane from a war zone have their plane shot down, stranding them on an undiscovered island. Losing touch with society, the boys start showing primitive instincts, like bloodlust and amoral behavior. These ideas resemble the theme of the Stanford Prison Experiment, a movie based on a psychological experiment simulating a prison with randomly

While arguably one of the defining psychological studies of the 20th Century, the research was not without flaws. Almost immediately the study became a subject for debate amongst psychologists who argued that the research was both ethically flawed and its lack of diversity meant it could not be generalized.

A wanted criminal. That is what Annie’s father in “The Book of the Dead” by Edwidge Danticat represents in reality. He is a former prison guard in Haiti under the Duvalier dictatorship that tortured prisoners and has a visible scar as a reminder of this time in his life. He tortured others and is now hiding his past in fear of punishment. He fled Haiti and avoids telling the truth regarding his hometown in fear of being traced. He is a wanted criminal eluding justice. He followed orders that harmed humans and performed criminal acts. Yet, as a character we do not hate him, but we sympathize with him. Three parts of his identity as a prison guard play a role in this: his development into a torturer, his PTSD, and his hiding. These three

In 1971 Philip Zambardo conducted an experiment in the basement of the Psycoigy department at the Stanford Univisty with a team of Psycogy students to see how normal people act in a prison inverment as a guard and or a prisoner. He wanted to see how theses men will adapt in this everment and it was to go on for 2 weeks but got cut short to 6 day for Psyogicl dmage that could of occerd if he keeped the experiment going any longer. Philip learned a lot with this experiment as did society did now to make it a forbitting exerment now. Phillip lreaned how people act in there fack roles and how far people will go when they have the power of a lab coat behinf them.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was an experiment to see if normal people would change their behavior in a role-play as a prisoner or a prison guard. The experiment was conducted by Dr.Philip Zimbardo in 1973 at Stanford University that caused numerous amount of trauma to prisoners by prison guards in their role-playing position which forced Dr. Zimbardo to officially terminate the experiment six days after it was introduced. Due to the cruel aggressive behaviors from the guards, the experiment led to a question, "Do "normal" people have the capability of behaving badly?" The answer to that question is that most likely an individual who behave normally will have the capability of expressing evil behavior due to the environment that they are surrounded. The supreme power of authority and having no remorse feelings with the addition of having an influence environment are the

Even though there are people willing to risk it all to go back to the life they had, there are some that become submissive and stop fighting. In Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Stanford phycology department. They recruited college students to run a mock prison so they could study the effect of becoming a prisoner and a prison guard. In this experiment that was supposed to run for two weeks ended up being stopped by the researchers on the six day because it was getting out of control. This is stated by the heads of the experiment Philip Zimbardo, Craig Haney, W. Curtis Banks, and David Jaffe in their report of the experiment. In the six days that the experiment ran they saw the personalities that the prisoner and prison guards took.

Authority gives a person the chance to feel superior, and as seen throughout this film, those within the position of authority will only then abuse this opportunity. Given the chance for people to gain authority or rather the sense of authority is enough to awaken the evil within. Within the movie, The Stanford Prison Experiment the guards were enabled to set a line of difference between the prisoners and themselves. They were able to make the prisoners feel weak or emasculated, forcing the students to strip and wear the assigned prison clothes that barely covered their genitals (Alvarez). Forcing the prisoners to wear these feminine articles of clothing and assigning them a number, gives the opportunity to strip away their personality and

The Standford Prison Experiment and the Abu Ghraib Prision are both similular in a situational context in which both presented the scenario of having the authority figures being the guards and the subordinate being the prisioners/detainees. In both prision is was seen that it was the “situation” that lead the guards within each prision to use they authority and dispositions to control criminals. Proving to Zimbardo that powerful situational forces could over-ride individual dispositions and choices and can result in good people doing bad things. “The terrible things my guards [at Stanford] did to their prisoners were comparable to the horrors inflicted on the Iraqi detainees. My guards repeatedly stripped their prisoners naked, hooded them, chained them, denied them food or bedding privileges, put them into solitary confinement, and made them clean toilet bowls with their bare hands.” (“Abuse and Authority - The Abu Ghraib Comparison,” 2015). In both of these situations, the guards working at the facilities were not trained in managing prisons or prisoners.The difference noted was that although the guards of the prison experiment had no reason to fear the prisoners, the guards at Abu Ghraib constantly feared of attacks due to them being outnumbered by prisoners and being in the middle of a war