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Essay On The Stanford Prison Experiment

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1. The Stanford Prison Experiment, Philip Zimbardo Zimbardo’s social experiment in 1971, The Stanford Experiment, is heavily criticised on ethical grounds it provides a valuable insight into the “interpersonal dynamics which occur within the prison environment,” (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973, p. 69). The experiment which randomly divided participants between prison guards and prisons dramatically demonstrated over a six day period the demonization that occurs within the prison system, as “the majority had indeed become prisoners or guards, no longer able to clearly differentiate between role playing and self,” (Zimbardo, 2001, p. 274). Whilst Zimbardo’s experiment is recognised as one of the first versions of “Reality TV” due to inclusion …show more content…

79). Watson believed that the differences in experiences of learning lead to different behaviours: "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and the race of his ancestors” (Watson, 1924, p. 104). Based on this belief Watson and Raynor (1920) designed the Little Albert Experiment to explore how classical conditioning can be used to condition an emotional response. “Classical conditioning occurs when two stimuli become associated with one another such that one stimulus now triggers a response that previously was triggered by the other stimulus,” (Passer & Smith, 2011, p. 214). In the case of Little Albert, the two stimuli were a white rat and a loud bang. Prior to conditioning Albert demonstrated fear in response to a loud bang but reacted positively to the white rat, (Prytula, Oster, & Davis, 1977, p. 44). However “on seven occasions, the experimenters presented the rat, followed by a sudden loud noise. They then found that Albert reacted fearfully to the rat alone,” (Hobbs, 2010, p.

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