Researchers selected twenty- four participants from a larger group of seventy volunteers because they had no criminal background, lacked psychological problems and had no medical conditions. They were randomly assigned to play the role of “prisoners” and “guards”. Phillip Zimbardo’s primary goal in this experiment was to find out the process when prisoners and guards become controlling and passive. He did this by setting up a mock prison in which all of the prisoners were assigned the same uniforms and cells and used numbers instead of names. The guards were assigned uniforms and offices, in a way similar to the prisoners except they were equipped with globes, whistles, handcuffs, keys and had freedom. These conditions allowed a setting similar to prisons, this also allowed everyone to be stripped of identifying characteristics, which allowed them to be “equal” ( Dunning, 2008).
One of Phillip Zimbardo’s claims was the “process” of becoming a prisoner. In this process, all of the participants were arrested, read their rights and charged with a felony. After they were taken down to the station to be fingerprinted, each prisoner was left isolated to wonder what he did. After a while, he was blindfolded and transported to the “Stanford county prison”. There he was stripped naked, searched, deloused and given a uniform, bedding, soup and a towel. In this “mock prison” prisoners lost their liberty, civil rights, independence and privacy, while guards gain social power by accepting the responsibility for controlling the lives of their dependent charges ( Alexander, 2001).
In the mock prison, inverse psychological relationships developed between prisoners and guards. Prisoners began to feel that there was no way to beat the system. They felt that is better to do nothing, except what guards told them. They didn’t want, act or feel anything so they wouldn’t get in trouble. Guards, on the other hand, assumed authority roles to control the prisoners and keep the prison in order. Some of the guards reacted extremely and behaved with hostility and cruelty towards the prisoners. However, others were kinder and occasionally did favors for the prisoners and didn’t punish them as much ( O’Toole, 1997).
On the morning of the second day of the experiment, the prisoners broke out in a rebellion. They barricaded themselves in their cells by pushing their beds up against the cell doors, they also proceeded to curse and jeer at the prison guards. The guards regained control of the prison by spraying fire extinguishers on the prisoners and stripping them of their clothing. The guards also forced the leaders of the riot into solitary confinement. Following the riot, the prisoners were more compliant to the rules the guards laid out for them. There was never another united uprising by the prisoners against their authority figures, meaning the guards. After the prisoners had accepted and fully assumed their roles, they suffered a loss of identity. This led the prisoners to not relate with one another on a personal level but it caused them to try and survive in their environment and concentrate on their personal well being. Eventually the prisoners focused on trying to survive and stay out of trouble. They lost their need to relate to others and have social relationships. With this loss of normal relationships entailing personal connections and social connections they lost respect for one another ( Shuttleworth, 2008).
According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford prison experiment demonstrates the powerful role that each situation can play in human behavior. Because the guards were placed in a position of power, they began to behave in ways they would not normally in their everyday lives or in other situations. The prisoners placed in a situation where they had no real control and they became passive and depressed ( Dunning, 2008).
The Stanford prison experiment is frequently cited as an example of unethical research. The experiment could not be replicated by researchers today because it fails to meet the standards established by many ethical codes, such as the Ethics Code of the American psychological association. Zimbardo himself acknowledges the ethical problems with the study saying that although they ended the study a week earlier than planned they did not ended it soon enough. Other critics suggest that the study lacks generalizability due to a variety of factors. The unrepresentative sample of participants, that they were mostly white and middle class males, makes it difficult to apply the results to a wider population. Also, while the researchers did their best to recreate a prison setting, it is simply not possible to perfectly imitate all of the environmental and situational factors of prison life ( Alexander, 2001).
Despite some of the criticism, the Stanford prison experiment remains an important study in our understanding of how the situation can influence human behavior. It is clear that we are a product of our environment and that personality traits and genes are not a sufficient explanation of behavior.
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REFERENCES
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Alexander, M. (2001). Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved: December 23, 2009, from: http\www.prisonexp.org
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Dunning, B. ( 2008). What you didn’t know about the Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved: December 22, 2009, from: http\skeptoid.com
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O’Toole, K. (1997). The Stanford prison experiment. Retrieved: December 23, 2009, from: http\www.stanford.edu
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Shuttleworth, B. (2008). The Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved: December 23, 2009, from: http\ experimentresources.com
