Participants were picked by maturity, intelligence, on their physical and mental health history and also their criminal history. The twenty-four participants selected were given consent forms to sign and a contract (with legal advice) stating they would receive a daily payment of fifteen Dollars for various tasks and work activities within the prison. Zimbardo split participants into two groups; half prisoners who were given rules they had to comply with or they’d be punished. An example was: “Prisoners must always address the guards as “Mr correction officer” and the warden as, “ Mr chief correctional officer.”()
The rest were guards and all were given uniforms fitting their roles in the experiment.
On the day of the experiment, prisoners were unexpectedly arrested, searched, fingerprints taken and taken to the prison. There, they were stripped, given a uniform, number and put into their cells; this was to be their home for two weeks.
The guards arrived in their uniforms and told they could make up their own rules for law, order and respect within the prison, they could also make up new ones when they pleased when on their eight-hour shift.
Within days of the experiment starting prisoners had become de-individualised robots unable to think. They became confused, depressed and hysterical who thought of their own survival while the guards became tyrants, taking pleasure in cruelty, abuse and the power they had over prisoners. ()
Zimbardo stopped the experiment after six days as he became concerned about how quickly each participant internalised into their roles and lost their own identity. Zimbardo himself pointed out that, “When prisoners were told they had been “denied parole”, the prisoners returned docilely to their cells and that had these individuals been thinking like the college students they were, instead of the prisoners the were playing, they simply would have quit.” ()
Zimbardos findings were that people experienced de-individualisation and their personal responsibility in a group. Zimbardo also found that the roles these participants were playing undid although only temporary a lifetime of learning.
Zimbardo could not predict that the experiment could be so extreme and so the ethics before the experiment had been adhered to at that time.
Prisoners were told that there was psychological help to enable prisoners to come to terms with what had happened and Zimbardo did offer follow up sessions.()
This essay has spoken about Zimbardos Stanford prison Experiment on conformity and about how it was carried out. It says what happened, the roles the participants took on and how the experiment ended.
It also explains Professor Zimbardo findings and how these individuals lost their identity.