User:Lexibellaoscar/sandbox

https://www.prisonexp.org/ - reliable website for the experiment that has evidence about the detailed descriptions about what has happened in the experiment.

 Participants 

in the article for Stanford prison experiment there has been question about the actual participants and if they were college students or not. Zimbardo, the conductor of the experiment, and his crew sent out a news ad calling for volunteers for the study. 70 applicants applied for the job and then were interview by Zimbardo and his crew to see if they had any disabilities (psychological or physical), and were checked for their history for crime or drug use of any kind. they then came down to 24 college students who were from the U.S. and Canada who happened to be in the Stanford area and wanted to earn $15/day for participating in the study.

 similar Studies 

shock experiment- One famous study in obedience was created by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University. He came up with an idea for an experiment focusing on the conflicting decisions between obedience to authority and inner conscience. During this experiment Milgram had a “teacher” and a “student” with the experimenter on the side with a lab coat on. what the teacher (who is the participant) doesn’t know is that the student is in on the experiment and is not actually another participant. During the experiment if the student answered a question wrong the teacher “shocks” the student. The teacher being unable to see the student, would hear a prerecorded response towards the shock from the student. The teacher would ask the experimenter to stop and end of the test but would not let them and make the teacher continue the test, and so they would because of the higher authority. comparing this to the Stanford Prison experiment both participants were influenced by higher authority and had created a stir of ethical issues between these two experiments.

 ethical issues- 

with how the results of this experiment had ended, there have been some stir in ethical consequences involving this experiment. This study received many criticism with the lack of full consent from the participants with the knowledge from Zimbardo that he himself couldn't have predicted how the experiment would have turned out to be. with the participants playing the roles of prisoners and guards, there was no certain fact that they would get the help that they need in process of this study. Zimbardo has come out to explain that he himself never thought his experiment would conclude how it did.

 criticism/responses 

treating of the prisoners-

with the treatment that the guards were given to the prisoners, the guards would become so deeply absorbed into their role as a guard that they would emotionally, physically and mentally humiliate the prisoners. from the website Stanford Prison Experiment, the authors had explain how the prisoners were humiliated, they wrote:

"Each prisoner was systematically searched and stripped naked. He was then deloused with a spray, to convey our belief that he may have germs or lice[...] Real male prisoners don't wear dresses, but real male prisoners do feel humiliated and do feel emasculated. Our goal was to produce similar effects quickly by putting men in a dress without any underclothes. Indeed, as soon as some of our prisoners were put in these uniforms they began to walk and to sit differently, and to hold themselves differently – more like a woman than like a man."

these guards had taken their role seriously when Zimbardo had assigned them their role. these participants were stripped from their identity of who they are from the outside world and were given ID numbers and were referred to as so.

Reporting the outcome-

Zimbardo who created this study did not even know how the study would end. with the backlash given to him for having these participants go into a cognitive distress, Zimbardo had come out to state that the prisoners were allowed to leave with the statement of "i quit the experiment". but with resent information that has been discovered, a French academic and filmmaker named Thibault Le Texier has discovered documents from Zimbardo at Stanford University which tells a different side to this life changing study. a taped conversation between Zimbardo and his staff on day three of the simulation:

“An interesting thing was that the guys who came in yesterday, the two guys who came in and said they wanted to leave, and I said no,” Zimbardo told his staff. “There are only two conditions under which you can leave, medical help or psychiatric… I think they really believed they can’t get out.”