The Stanford Prison Experiment Philip G Zimbardo

Words: 447
Pages: 2
Open Document
A Summary of “The Stanford Prison Experiment” by Philip G. Zimbardo
The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological study conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971. The study began by placing ads in the local city and campus newspapers asking for volunteers to participate in a study of prison life. Each participant would receive $15.00 per day for the duration of the study. The study included twenty-one participants, including ten mock prisoners and eleven mock prison guards out of more than seventy-five responses to the ad. The volunteers were selected randomly using a coin flip deciding who would be the prisoners and who would be the guards.

The mock prison was set up in the basement of the University and remodeled to duplicate real life prison cells with metal barred doors, a prison yard, the hole and even bedrooms for the mock warden and mock superintendent. The prisoners wore typical attire of an inmate including smocks and stocking caps. The first day of the study passed without issues, however, two days into the study the mock prisoners began a riot forcing the guards to exude more dominant behaviors to cease the actions of the prisoners and assume their …show more content…
Within the next three days more prisoners were released due to suffering similar conditions including one prisoner who developed a rash all over his body. There was even a divide in ranks among the guards. Guards who were not as forceful or sadistic in their treatments and behavior to the prisoners were viewed by their peers as weaker and insufficient. However, other guards took their role to the extreme. The student’s became so engrossed in their roles they forgot they were simply college students volunteering in a psychological study. The study was to run a full two weeks, but due to the reaction of both prisoners and guards, the study was terminated after only six
Show More

Related Documents: The Stanford Prison Experiment Philip G Zimbardo

Compare And Contrast Milgram And Zimbardo

The Bias of Milgram and Zimbardo Most scientists would tell you that in a controversial scientific investigation such as Stanley Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience” or Philip G. Zimbardo’s “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” it is highly important to avoid bias. Bias, or an opinion, has a great effect on how an experiment is comprehended and can affect whether or not the data gathered can be taken seriously. Hundreds of thousands of studies before it have been condemned because of the lack of objectivity…

Words 589 - Pages 3

The Wave Analysis Essay

a movie set in modern Germany is based on an experiment conducted in Cubberley high school, in North California in order to educate students on fascism during the holocaust; we have learned a lot about the psychological manner of humans from this experiment. A similar experiment to the one conducted in The Wave was The Stanford Prison Experiment. In this paper I will be discussing the experiment conducted in The Wave, The Stanford Prison Experiment, and finally comparing and contrasting the two…

Words 2488 - Pages 10

Stanford Prison Experiment Zimbardo

Stanford prison experiment and the human response to captivity The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971, was a study that sought to see the human response to captivity. A total of 21 male subjects were assigned to either prison guard or prisoner. The study was planned to last for two weeks but was ended in six days due to the behavior of both the guards and prisoners. He wanted to see how a person would react to such oppression endured in prison. While some of Zimbardo’s…

Words 1007 - Pages 5

Critique the Power of Organizations from Weberian and Goffmanesque Perspective in the Stanford Prison Experiment Essay

Q 1. Critique the power of organizations from Weberian and Goffmanesque perspectives in the Stanford Prison This document briefly reviews and critiques the ideas of Weber and Goffman in applying them to the Standard Prison Experiment. Weber identified the significance of bureaucracy within organizations. Within the bureaucratic organization there is a stratification of hierarchy where the legal legitimate authority is invested in individuals who exercise command on the basis of rules and…

Words 1778 - Pages 8

Essay on Lord of the Flies

transformation of the beliefs and morals of the boys as the story progresses is astounding but Golding seems to imply that it could happen to any population of people unburdened by civil society. In a famous social experiment from the 1970s, Philip G. Zimbardo, a PhD researcher at Stanford University, created a study analyzing the reactions of people put into either a subordinate or powerful, anonymous situation. To do this…

Words 716 - Pages 3

Psychology and United States Essay

constancy" to explain how a progressively ordered and structured system can evolve from a disorganized state, a notion that suggests Freud's famous formula. Fechner was a role model for Freud, thus he was a member of the psychoanalytic branch. G. Stanley Hall Born: February 01, 1844 in Ashfield, Massachusetts, United States Died: April 24, 1924 in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States In 1884 Hall set up an experimental psychology laboratory (the first in the United States) at Johns Hopkins…

Words 4573 - Pages 19