Groups and Obedience The Stanford Prison Experiment Sociology

Groups and Obedience The Stanford Prison Experiment Sociology Ms. Blackhurst

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Experiment Questions ► What happens when you put good people in an evil place? ► Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? ► These are some of the questions posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.

Experiment Design ► Social psychologist Phillip Zimbardo ► Experiment to study the behaviors of people without criminal records in a mock prison ► Experiment used to study ascribed statuses and conformity ► Selected 24 healthy young men volunteers ► Normal, intelligent, middle class college students ► Half were assigned the roles of guards; the other half were prisoners

Experiment Design Guards made their rules ► Prisoners were unexpectedly picked up from their homes, handcuffed and searched ► Then stripped, deloused, groin uniforms, and put in a cell ► The experiment was supposed to last two weeks… ►

Experiment Results But the experiment was stopped after only six days! ► Each group could no longer distinguish between their roles and real life ► In only a few days, the guards became sadistic and the prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. ►

► Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment of August 1971 quickly became a classic. ► Using realistic methods, Zimbardo and others were able to create a prison atmosphere that transformed its participants. ► The young men who played prisoners and guards revealed how much circumstances can distort individual personalities -- and how anyone, when given complete control over others, can act like a monster.

Let’s see what happened. . . ► www. prisonexp. org

Implications ► "It shows how easy it is for good people to become perpetrators of evil. " ► Zimbardo maintains that the student-participants suffered no long-term harm -- even though some had symptoms of mental breakdown during the experiment. But now, the standards for using human subjects in research wouldn't permit such an experiment, ► "Because of the rules, it's unlikely to ever be replicated"

Implications ► Zimbardo has strong opinions on the harmful effects of harsh prison sentences. "Prisons are evil places that demean humanity. . They are as bad for the guards as they are for the prisoners, " he said, pointing to results of his experiment showing that both guards' and prisoners' personalities were warped by their given roles.