Zimbardo's Prison study: Do the ends justify the means?

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Zimbardo’s Prison study: Do the ends justify the means?

Zimbardo believed that his ‘prison study’ justified the means. According to him, his participants didn’t show any long-term negative effects. Over the years he had been constructing a report on his participants to see whether there were any negative effects but discovered that they hadn’t been affected. He mentions that the participants led normal lifestyles and didn’t have re-occurring memories about the prison experience and in fact had learnt that social influence can have an effect on anyone

Throughout the short history of psychology one of the most major transformations that have taken place is in regard to what we believe is ethical or not in the experimentation process. E.g. the study by Milgram about obedience is extremely unethical but its still to this day an important part of research, the same applies to the Prison Study by Zimbardo. You wouldn’t be permitted to imitate any research of that sort in this present day.

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In addition you have to be aware that it isn’t just how the Participants are treated that make a study unethical but as well as the wider ethical implication of the research. For example Gould’s study tells us that the results that Yerkes collected were used to support racist views, restraining immigration policies and even the eugenics movement.

The ethical guidelines lay down by the BPS (British Psychological Society) are consent, debriefing, harm to Participants, privacy, discretion, withdrawal and terms governing observational research.

The advantages of conducting ethical research are to improve human life. Psychology should be humanitarian if it’s ...

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