Philip Zimbardo's The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was led by Philip Zimbardo with the purpose of studying the psychological effects of being a prisoner and a prison guard. The participants of the research study were male college students. Once selected, a coin toss determined which males would be prisoners and prison guards. The experiment took place at Stanford University, where a mock prison was crafted. Zimbardo acted as the warden or superintendent of the mock prison. Within 24 hours of the experiment, the prison guards began to humiliate and mentally abuse the prisoners. The prison guards were given little instructions about how to treat the prisoners, except that there was not to be any physical force used on the prisoners. The lack of instructions that

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.

In 1971 Professor Phillip Zimbardo was interested in finding out what would happen if you put a good person in an evil place. Would the institution control their behavior or would a person attitude, values, morality raise about the negative environment? First, Zimbardo converted a basement of Stanford University into a mock prison, Next, Zimbardo recruiter 24 male college students who were paid $15 per day to take part in the experiment. Finally, the recruiters were randomly assigned to either prisoner or guard with Zimbardo being the make shift prison warden. I believe the prison study was unethical, clearly young men suffered physically, mentally. Verbally and same of the prisoners felt shame in their role. Studies like Zimbardo have raise

Even though the goals of this experiment were to study the psychological effects of prison on people, it did that and many more by showing how our behaviors can be changed through the roles we participate in. It was also learned that when playing a role most people have a normative conformity and this experiment as many ethical issues that have been discussed in this paper. Are we, as people, greater than the sum of our roles? Or are we truly defined by our roles, and our roles alone? These are questions that need to be reflected

The purpose of the research described in the experiment is to investigate life experienced in prison by both prisoners and guards, the psychological effect it has on both groups. To understand, “basic psychological mechanisms underlying human aggression,”(Zimbardo et al., 1973, p.1).

In life, the world one lives in is always assumed to be the reality, without anyone questioning its credibility. As Iris Murdoch once said, “[People] live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.”(Iris Murdoch Quotes). In The Allegory of the Cave by Plato, prisoners are trapped in a cave and chained so that they are to face a wall and only see the shadows of objects that pass behind them. However, one prisoner is released and forced out into the reality, allowing the reader to understand that the world one sees and experiences is not the reality, but rather an illusion. Similarly, in The Truman Show by Andrew Niccol, Truman Bank has been growing up in Seahaven Island, a place created just for him to live in for a television show that is all about him. Throughout the film, Truman realizes that Seahaven is not the real world, and viewers see his journey to get out of this illusion, and into reality outside the false world. Both The Allegory of the Cave and The Truman Show prove that the physical world is an illusion that prevents one from discovering reality. The concept of illusion versus reality is evident in both works through similarities in plot, similarities in symbolism, and differences in character.

Second, The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological study that was too inhumane to continue because of the behavior of the prison guards when handed with superiority and the mental breakdowns of the prisoners.

The person who releases the prisoners has been enlightened from the bonds of a false reality. The prisoners become completely free when they are realesed from their chains, and accept what things truly are, rather than what they had perceived them to be.

Since the beginning of the human existence, man has always dominated and ruled over one another be it empires, corporations, or small groups. Authority and obedience has always been a factor of who we are. This natural occurrence can be seen clearly through the psychological experiments known as The Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Both of these studies are based on how human beings react to authority figures and what their obedience is when faced with conflict.

In reality, many people live without an absolute knowledge of the world and often times, they are comfortable with this ignorance. Likewise, Plato introduces the idea of this unawareness through The Allegory of the Cave, a short story in his published book, The Republic: Book VII. In his book, he narrates the story of a few prisoners who are held captive in a dark cave, where the only light that shines through is from a fire that burns behind them. He further explains that the prisoners are completely bound and unable to move their body or head. Moreover, he reveals that the captives grew up with no outside communication and consequently, the way of life in the cave was all they knew. As time pass by, figures pass the fire and their shadows are projected onto the wall before the prisoners. Since they are unable to look behind them, they falsely assume that the shadows before them are what they presume them to be instead of the figures themselves. Similarly, The Truman Show, a drama movie, directed by Peter Weiss and released to the public in 1998, circulates around the same concept

Plato’s short story the Allegory of the Cave, Plato portrays a scene in a cave to the reader that analyzes human actions. The story is about a group of men that are chained for their entire life. The only thing they are exposed to are shadows on the wall of a fire burning by people behind them. The people exposing these men are hiding the truth of the outside world. Plato reveals that humans are easily fooled into believing what they see. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave the people think that their entire reality is the shadows that they see on the walls of the cave. Plato explores the truth and criticizes that humanity does not question what is real.

Truth is often a term that is taken into consideration when one is verbally speaking, but most find it rather difficult to truly define truth. While every person can attempt to uniquely give their own interpretation to what the world regards as truth, the realm of philosophy presents several brilliants ideas about the concept. In general, the study of philosophy recognizes two truths: objective and subjective. Objective truth can be described as truth that has always existed whether one knows it or not, while subjective truth is dependent on the person’s ideas and feelings towards a reality. Influential and well-known philosophers such as Mortimer J. Adler and Plato have contributed thoughts that often present similar ideas about the definition

Plato, a famous Greek philosopher wrote the Allegory of the Cave. He tried to answer some of the profound questions which arose about the nature of reality. He tells the story of 'Allegory of the Cave' as a conversation between his mentor, Socrates (Plato’s mentor), who inspired many of Plato's philosophical theories, and one of Socrates' students, Glaucon (Plato’s older brother). He uses an allegory as a short informative story, to illustrate 'forms' and the 'cave,' in his main work, The Republic (which first appeared around 380 BC). It is one of the most perceptive attempts to explain the nature of reality. The state of most human beings is depicted in this myth of the cave and the tale of a thrilling exit from the cave is the source of true understanding. Plato has portrayed the concept of reality and illusion through the allegory of the cave.

In what ways did the writings of Plato’s Republic and Hayy ibn Yaqzan foreshadow the theme of enlightenment?

Over the years, scientists, psychologists, and doctors have used social experiments to further their understanding of our surroundings. Social experiments are studies of the human mind and psyche through various environments. In this case, a social experiment called the Stanford Prison Experiment is what opened new doors for the comprehension of human behavior, how we act when we are in power, as well as offered a glimpse into the flaws in our legal system. This experiment was conducted in 1971 in Palo Alto, California. As stated in the name of the actual experiment, it was a simulation of how it was like to be imprisoned. The participants were 24 college students. The