In this paper we will be discussing the famous psychology studies completed by Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo. Both of these studies had a huge impact on psychology and are still relevant to this day. They gave psychologists an insight into how humans react in social situations when an authority figure is present in a simulated environment. The experiments also showed how people’s norms and values can change when assuming certain social roles. In Zimbardo’s prison study he had selected students after putting out an advertisement for the experiment. He first interviewed everyone to ensure that none of them had any previous medical or psychological conditions, or any history of arrests/ drugs abuse. Then they were given tests to ensure their personalities were a right fight for the study. The students wore uniforms and the prisoners even had to wear a locked chain …show more content…
It likewise disproves the theory of prison guard’s aggression stemming from dispositions. This experiment demonstrations another important finding which is that people will conform to a new social role fairly quickly, particularly one that has a strong label associated with it. The Zimbardo study showed us that people tend to lose their self-awareness in a group of people by becoming so immersed into the norms of the group that they lost touch with themselves. In Stanley Milgram’s famous “shock study” he put out an advertisement in the newspaper looking for men to participate in his experiment at Yale university. He was originally looking for males between the ages of 20 and 50 years old. He had a variety of different types of people participating in this study, he had people working in skilled and unskilled careers. He paired the volunteers up with a confederate and told them a cover story that the confederate they were paired up with was another participant in the
This Milgram research on respect to authority figures was a series of cultural science experiments conducted by Yale University scientist Stanley Milgram in 1961. They assessed the willingness of survey participants, men from a different variety of jobs with varying degrees of training, to obey the authority figure who taught them to do acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to think that they were helping an unrelated research, in which they had to distribute electrical shocks to the individual. These fake electrical shocks gradually increased to grades that could have been deadly had they been true. McLeod's article about the Milgram experiment exposed the fact that a high percentage of ordinary people will
Situational 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).
(Russell 2014) Conclusion: Despite controversy Milgram’s experiment was ground breaking. It remains relevant today and is frequently cited in demonstrating the perils of obedience.
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
During the 1960’s Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments to test how a person reacts to authority. He started these tests in response to World War Two and the reports of the German soldiers who claimed they were “just following orders’ when asked about
One of the most infamous experiments conducted in the history of psychology was the Stanford Prison Experiment. The main objective of this experiment was to see what effects would occur when a psychological experiment into human nature was performed. As I read through the material provided, I noticed that my thoughts on the matter were similar to many; that it was a complete failure as a scientific research project. However, his findings did provide us with something much more important that is still being talked about today; insight into human psychology and social behavior.
Stanford Prison Experiment 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.
The Milgram experiment was conducted to analyze obedience to authority figures. The experiment was conducted on men from varying ages and varying levels of education. The participants were told that they would be teaching other participants to memorize a pair of words. They believed that this was an experiment that was being conducted to measure the effect that punishment has on learning, because of this they were told they had to electric shock the learner every time that they answered a question wrong. The experiment then sought out to measure with what willingness the participants obeyed the authority figure, even when they were instructed to commit actions which they seemed uncomfortable with.
Name : Muhammed Irshad Madonna ID : 250509 Subject : Medical Ethics Due Date : 8/01/2018 Paper : 1-The Milgram Experiment The Stanley Milgram Experiment is a famous study about obedience in psychology which has been carried out by a Psychologist at the Yale University named, Stanley Milgram. He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. In July 1961 the experiment was started for researching that how long a person can harm another person by obeying an instructor.
Two ‘prisoners’ had to be removed early from the experiment and several were emotionally distressed. However, it does show the power of situation on people’s behavior and decision-making. The people chosen for the experiment were regular students. They were assigned to their roles randomly – the prisoners had not done anything ‘wrong’ and the guards had not earned their position of authority.
During the fall of 1973, Phillip Zimbardo conducted his famous Stanford Prison Study where he recruited 24 undergraduate students to either become prisoners or guards in his experimental prison: the “Stanford County Jail". The recreation of this prison was conducted to study how an individual’s status and/or label changed depending on the social role they had to fulfill. The participants included 12 guards and 12 prisoners, each given proper uniform to wear, such as providing the prisoners with a smock that contained ID numbers on both sides and a chain with a heavy ball around their ankle. Both groups were also given detailed instructions on the requirements they had to complete in order for the individual to assimilate to their character.
The participants of the Stanford Prison experiment were healthy young men who were promised a nominal fee for their services. These participants were blindfolded and assumed the role of prisoner or guard in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford University. Prisoners were stripped, chained, belittled and humiliated by the guards.
Another thing that makes this experiment beautiful is that it can help the police and military offices to train their people in coping the stress of being imprisoned among the prisoners. It would help them to know how that prison environment has a great factor in creating brutal behavior among the
The second aspect that should be highlighted from the author’s hypothesis is that guards themselves, the authority was in a specific mind-set which comes with the role, and most significantly the uniform which played a major role. This enabled them, psychology to commit the negative acts against the prisoners in the experiment. What reinforces this idea the uniforms enabled this is the experiment encouraged negative as well as positive engagement with the prisoners. However most of those involved in the guard roles engaged almost entirely in negative behavior.
The line on the wall is not always clear. The vast majority of people like to think they will stand against the masses if they believe they are right, unfortunately this is far from the truth. Asch wanted to investigate what drove people to act the way they do in group settings, like in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Asch took a simplistic approach looking at what drove the need to conform and follow directions. He proves with his conformity experiment, just how completely our need to follow the crowd is, we are driven by the masses and our need to conform to the group standards of behavior.