Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect
When a newborn is brought onto this earth, they are completely innocent. They can’t say anything, or do anything, therefore; there is no possible way to assume their character. It is what this newborn choses to do with their life in later years that will determine who they will become, and there are two paths in life that they can take. They can either choose to always make good decisions, and never become too self-absorbed, or they can choose to let their pride influence their actions. Most of the time, evilness has the biggest impact on those who easily adapt to their external influences. There are three real-life situations that support the fact that good people can turn evil. In each experience, people are placed in a situation that gives …show more content…
According to Zimbardo, his reason for this experiment was so that “examining and understanding the causes of evil might we be able to change it, to contain it, to transform it through wise decisions and innovative communal action” (Zimbardo, 20). The experiment consisted of young men in college being appointed either a prisoner or guard position. Every man, prisoner or guard, started off normal- some more polite than others, some more aggressive, but overall normal. As time goes by, Zimardo states that “the Stanford prison would become the scene of abuses that eerily foreshadowed the abuses of Abu Ghraib by Army Reserve Military Police years later” (Zimbardo, 46). Within just days of the experiment, guards were transitioning from soft, easy going men, to forceful, demanding, and quite abusive. In the same sense, the prisoners went from nervous, innocent men to rebellious and chaotic men. By the end of the experiment, it was obvious that the participants acted in a way that best represented who they were in terms of the prison. Because the guards had an overflow of pride and power, they became evil as they used it to their advantage and abused the prisoners. The prisoners became evil as they turned their lack of power into a form of protest, which caused a great amount of
Kyle Patrick Alvarez's 'The Stanford Prison Experiment'
749 Words | 3 PagesIn Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s The Stanford Prison Experiment, 20 college aged boys are selected to play different roles in a simulated prison located within Stanford. This experiment was thought of and carried out by Philip Zimbardo, a professor of psychology. The boys, who were also students at Stanford, were randomly selected to be a guard or a prisoner. The prisoners were taken by real police officers to the Stanford jail. When the experiment started, most of the prisoners thought of the situation as it was intended to be, an experiment.
Randy Gragg
1016 Words | 5 Pagesthem binary through the authority implied by the direct guard inmate relationship. In quiet rage, the purpose of the experiment was to show what an increase in power and status can do to a person. Essentially Zimbardo's power and authority (being the phycologist) led him to overlooking horrible situations and allowing them to take place. In fact, his own experiment even tricked him. Look at all the police brutality and all the violence in the prisons.
Philip Zimbardo: The Lucifer Effect
1254 Words | 6 PagesSituational effects and personality come into conflict when discussing behavior. Personality is someone’s “usual pattern of behavior, feelings, and thoughts” (Twenge, 2017, p.20). It remains constant throughout different situations, but some situations can be stressful enough to make a person act out of character. The transition between a person’s normal personality and behavior to a more evil, sinister behavior fascinates a man named Philip Zimbardo, who conducted the infamous Zimbardo Prison Experiment, or Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). Zimbardo is an American psychologist at Stanford University and the mastermind behind the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment (The Story).
Zimbardo The Lucifer Effect Analysis
612 Words | 3 PagesThe guards abused their power. They enjoyed the power of controlling others. It was the unlimited power that made them control the prisoners and made them become
Compare And Contrast Stanford Prison Experiment And Philip Zimbardo
751 Words | 4 PagesIn summary, the purpose of the Stanford Prison Experiment was supposed to demonstrate that powerful situational forces, much like Abu Ghraib, could over-ride individual dispositions and choices, leading good people to do bad things simply because of the role they found themselves
Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect
738 Words | 3 PagesBut rather how ordinary individuals, who thought themselves to be incapable to commit acts of evil, can become the very evil they thought impossible. Subsequently, he constructs the Stanford Prison Experiment as a mean to explain how such factors can effect how someone may go about in the given circumstance, and how the perception for our moral standards can be overcome. As outlined throughout the book, he illustrates how the experiment transpired in a chronological format. As the experiment continued, he uses specific case examples, and allows the audience to take a glimpse into the past, as the dialogue and inner workings of the participants progressed. For instance, he uses the character of Vandy amongst many, as a way to demonstrate how an individual thought to be sympathetic, still choose to abuse his authority, and became harmful to the prisoners.
Compare And Contrast The Milgram Experiment And The Stanford Prison Experiment
810 Words | 4 PagesThe guards were instructed to maintain order anyway they wanted without using physical violence. Zimbardo wanted the guards to seem intimidating while the prisoners were made to look inferior and were to be referred to with their ID number only. After the prisoners were assigned their roles and the guards took their post was the effect of the experiment finally setting in. On the morning of the second day the prisoners began to rebel against the guards by ripping off their ID numbers and barring the doors while taunting the guards. This event was the first step down the slippery slope that would follow.
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599 Words | 3 PagesThey also concluded that the environment of the prison played a vital role in the way the guards treated the prisoners. It is believed that this experiment changed the way some U.S. prisons are
The Stanford Prison Experiment Essay
1114 Words | 5 PagesAuthority 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
How Did Philip Zimbardo Conform
1676 Words | 7 PagesAfter the experiment, the students who played the guards were interviewed and found to still be shocked by their behavior within the fake prison environment, unrecognising that side of them or that they were even capable of doing such evil and abusive
Inherent Goodness In Lord Of The Flies
760 Words | 4 PagesNobody is born bad, not even the evilest of souls. In the Lord of the Flies, the main point of emphasis is that inherent good is in everyone, but so is original sin. The beast is inside of us all, and that is why with every child comes a beast. People turn savage because of their life experiences. Many times throughout our life we must make a decision that can change us forever.
Summary Of The Stanford Prison Experiment By Saul Mcleod
213 Words | 1 PagesIn the article “The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Saul Mcleod it takes the reader through the process of an experiment by the University of Stanford were they got a group of people and split them up into to groups one group of people were guards and the other group of people were the prisoners, now in the experiment the guards were in charge of the prisoners, the prisoners relied on the guards for everything whether it be food or water or even a new set of clothes but as the experiment went on the guard abused their power making prisoners do miniscule task such as clean toilets with toothbrushes re make their beds after they had just been made and other thing, is is an example of the guards having to much power and they abused it at their
Why Do People Choose Evil In Lord Of The Flies
983 Words | 4 PagesPeople are often presented with making a choice of good or bad. These opportunities can define an individual's life. Someone does not turn evil with the flip of a switch. There is always a process whether it is noticed or not. The reason a person does something in the nature of evil is commonly hard for others to understand.
The Stanford Prison Experiment: Can Normal People Behaving Evil?
858 Words | 4 PagesThis connects to the idea of guards having the capability of turning evil through an atmosphere of the prison environment where they can turn evil and have no remorse feelings towards the prisoners. From the article, "Stanford Prison Experiment," by Saul McLeod, he explained that the evil tactics that were made by the guards were from the atmosphere of the prison environment because the norm for a prison guard is to act tough and have no remorse feelings towards the prisoners when assigning punishments. He also added that guards acted this way because they lost their sense of personal identity when they dressed up as a guard, which can show they may have believed that they were actual guards and the experiment was real, which might’ve triggered their dark side with harsh punishments. Therefore, losing their personal identity in a prison environment may have been the factor where they triggered their evil side during the prison
Are People Born Good Or Evil Essay
937 Words | 4 PagesThe experiment mainly focused on the participants appearance, for example prisoners were dressed into prison clothes for feeling more demeaned and humiliated, however at the same time guards were dressed into like real guards with sunglasses for appearing more detached and less humane. The results were terrifying because the guards took the matter seriously and sometimes harassed the prisoners with the help pf physical punishment, or even
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