The problems are thorny. We see them in a famous (or infamous) experiment conducted at Stanford in 1971. Professor Philip Zimbardo created a prison simulation with undergraduate students, male, white middle-class students. He wished to determine whether a brutal and hostile environment determines behavior, or whether an individual's own personal characteristics determine it. Were prisons conditioning people to behave sadistically, or was this sadism an innate characteristic? Is it nature or is it nurture?
In class we watched a BBC documentary on the experiment (the link is also on Edline) and are familiar with its details. After six days Zimbardo shut down the experiment. Please respond to one of the statements below:
- The Stanford Prison Experiment was a daring and creative simulation that revealed that human behavior is substantially determined by environment. If one places several well-adjusted subjects into a degrading authoritarian environment, they quickly lose their sense of personal identity and become utterly submissive. The Scientific Method was well applied for the most part and, whatever the faults in application, these did not compromise the findings. Environment powerfully shapes behavior. In retrospect we undertand more about the ethics of experimentation and, through subsequent reflection, can apply better guidelines to prevent duress in experiments. We saw the very same phenomenom with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that erupted in 2004. If the military had been aware of the 1971 experiment, that scandal could have been prevented.
- The Stanford Prison Experiment was a poorly conceived work of improvised theater with unprofessional actors. The guards were told at the beginning to abuse the students psychologically, and true prison conditions were not replicated. One student guard admits to acting out a sadistic role seen in Cool Hand Luke. If students and the professor himself were merely playing roles learned from Hollywood movies, there was no true scientific study, it was improvised theater. Moreover, there was no neutral observer, no independent variable, nothing was measured, the results were impressionistic. The conclusions articulated in the documentary seem to manifest Confirmation Bias. Does one really need to determine that studious well-behaved unconfrontational middle class young men will be submissive in prison? Can one generalize about human beings from such a small group? The naiveté of the study was extraordinary.
Was it nature or nurture?
ReplyDeleteThere was no way to predict how each partaker of the Stanford Prison Experiment would react, and how their behavior would be influenced by circumstances. The participants had been chosen by chance, and had been assigned a role in the experiment at random. Surprisingly, the men adapted to their assigned role far beyond what had been hypothesized by professor Zimbardo. The guards displayed authority and control, and inevitably subjected the prisoners to their abuse and cruelty. Contemporarily, most prisoners accepted the violence passively, and were utterly obedient to the guards’ orders and punishments. What once were “well-adjusted” subjects of society soon became either degraded or corrupted by power. The men detached themselves from their true identity and fell more deeply under the spell of the submissive environment. Zimbardo himself, lost sight of his true self as the psychologist and adapted to his role of “prison superintendent.” The conditions had become so appalling that the experiment was shut down after only six days. The recorded results supported the matter that surrounding circumstances had caused the participant’s behavior, rather than their innate personality. It is true, that as the experiment began the partakers were “role-playing,” however, the men internalized their role throughout the development.
Despite the many unethical and unscientific claims that criticized the prison simulation, this experiment does allow a further understanding of the delicate human nature and how it can easily be altered depending on the surrounding atmosphere. A similar phenomenon to this can be noted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal of 2004. Had the United States government been aware of the moral corruption which power can indulge human beings, the physical and psychological torture to which the prisoners had been subjected by the American soldiers, might have been prevented. Of course, this is only an outstretched assumption; had the soldiers only been affected by their personal hostility towards the prisoners, and not only their acquired sentiment of power, then all of the findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment would be denounced.
Professor Philip Zimbardo created a prison simulation with undergraduate students. He wanted to determine whether a hostile environment would have changed the people’s behaviour. The prisoners had been chosen by chance and they were paid for participating in this experiment. The guards abused their power and they exercised their authority over the prisoners. This experiment took a bad inclination from the beginning. Only few prisoners tried to rebel to the violence of the guards. The others accepted passively the treatment and obeyed orders. This experiment soon degenerated and the prison became a hostile environment, therefore, it was closed after only six days. It is difficult to set up an experiment to determine whether or not prison changes people’s character. Also professor Zimbardo forgot the real intent of his experiment; instead of analyzing the psychological response of people’s character when put in a prison, he became the chief of the prison. The prisoners completely forgot that they were only actors in this experiment and they had an eminent psychological response. Even though this experiment lasted only six days it was enough for understanding that a tough surrounding atmosphere will change people’s behaviour. The prisoners lost all their personal identity and became totally submissive. The very same scandal took place in the Abu Ghraib prison in 2004. If the military had been aware of the 1971 experiment, that scandal could have been prevented.
ReplyDeletevittorio fiore
The Stanford experiment was a daring attempt of reproducing a violent and hostile environment such as that of a prison. Even though this experiment was initially intended to be beneficial in the fact that it tried to analyze human behavior in difficult circumstances, the errors carried out throughout the university's analysis made the outcome disastrous. The first and most determining source of error stems from the very fact that recreating such a violent and hostile environment, like that of a prison is extremely risky and difficult to do. This is not only because in real life situations guards would not act like arrogant undergraduates but also because real life prisoners have personally condemned themselves to their situation hence already knowing the possible treatments that any prison would imply. In this experimentation however the guards were arrogant young college students possibly unaware of the gravity of their actions; and the prisoners were unexpectedly incapable of withstanding the poor treatment received by the guards of the situation. Their only motivation came from the monetary profit of such experimentation and this is far too futile for them to be actually prepared to face these circumstances. This is why this experiment turned out to be a total breakdown of original expectations: due to the immaturity of the test subjects. If this were to be repeated with more age advanced subjects who have a personal set of ideals and maturity then the outcome would probably have been very different. This was also stated by one of the guards who declared with resentment that as a guard at that tender age, made himself be overcome by his arrogance and his egotistic personality. The overall outcome of this experimentation turned out to be surprisingly disastrous for its original purpose. Stanford University may have therefore inferred that placing young college students in such a serious environment such as that of a prison is extremely daring and inconclusive other than personally damaging for the subjects of the examination.
ReplyDeleteFIRST PARAGRAPH RESPONSE
ReplyDeleteProfessor Philip Zimbardo was a psychology professor at the Stanford University, who started the Stanford prison experiment August of the 1971. First of all ethics has to be taken in consideration: he did not follow a respectful toward the participants throughout the experiment. He led the guards-students abuse psychologically of the prisoners-ones, he gave harmless electroshock to the participants, he didn't specifically explain the aim and the main characteristics of the experiments to the students before participating, and others. Studying IB psychology and having studied many other experiments I recognize that all of these details are absolutely unethical and disrespectful towards human being. Is it worth it to treat young people in this way in order to get results on the debate nurture vs nature? Of course the kids that played the role of guards didn't have a neat idea on how to act, they didn't have experience in this environment; therefore they just took inspiration from movies and stereotyped prison attitudes. This is an element to take in consideration while evaluating the findings of Prof. Zimbardo. Secondly, both guards and prisoners were young and this might have affected the attitude of the latter towards the fomer, because of the same age and coming from the same campus. Also, if all of the 24 participants were first year university students, we can't extend the results of the experiment to all of the population, as older people may probably act differently. That's why a sample of all ages, genders, and origins should be taken. Lastly, data weren't taken with modern appropriate machines and the findings were not scientific-biased: they were impressions of the Professors. From a point of view these lasts should be reliable as he is a psychologist and he is an expert of human behavior, but from another point of view those are just one person's (or few more, if considered his assistants) perspective about the prisoners' behavior. Many little factors of the experiment are not precise neither adapt to the study, and some of them might have affected the results.
Professor Zimbardo set up an experiment that analysed whether good and sane people are influenced if put in a negative and adverse environment. In order to do so he decided that the prison would have been the adequate place; so Zimbardo and his colleagues recreated a prison in Stanford University. He recruited 24 undergraduates that had been paid and who where given the role of guard or prisoner. The experiment was scheduled on twelve days but was interrupted after six. The role that was assigned to the men was key to their behaviour. The guards were placed in a position of power and started behaving in a superior and cruel way towards the prisoners instead the prisoners felt depressed and succumbed to the tyrannies of the guards. The whole experiment degenerated and developed corrupt and depraved guards. All the members of the experiment lost the sense of reality and in the end actually believed to be in a real prison. Zimbardo himself detached from reality and acted as the chief of the prison and not anymore as the psychologist analysing the situation. This false information that inducted in the brain of each individual taking part in the experiment developed even a more brutal atmosphere and made the prisoners go through a really stressful stage in which some of them reacted with panic attacks. After this some of the prisoners declined the experiment because they couldn’t manage all the stress they were exposed to. The situation became so brutal that the experiment had to be interrupted after only six days. Even though the experiment didn’t follow certain ethical issues that need to be taken in account when undertaking a psychological study the observations that can be made on human kind are interesting. Only after six days in which a “normal” individual is positioned in a horrific environment changes and merges in the situation. So we can deduct how malleable the nature of someone can be.
ReplyDeleteI think that experiments on human behavior are very difficult. Like the Stanford Prison Experiment proves, human behavior can’t possibly be recorded like data in a chemistry or physics experiment, for example, to then put the data in order to derive conclusions with real facts and proof. I believe that the experiment initially wasn’t set up well enough to even be called an experiment in the first place, let alone the fact that it can be debated whether or not it was immoral or not. Human behavior varies from person to person which immediately makes it extremely hard to generalize the reactions of 24 people as that of the whole world. This would also make it hard to answer Zimbardo’s initial question: Can human behavior be determined by environment or nature? Even Zimbardo himself ended up questioning his own experiment. This means that he wasn’t sure of his own experiment and was insecure about how to deal with his experiment. In the end though he finished with the conclusion that environment does shape and can change human behavior. I think that this result can be determined by various factors like what type of experiences you went through in the past, what type of personality you have, how much you know yourself and are convinced of the values you follow etc. Maybe an unstable and insecure person is more easily influenced by others and the environment they find themselves in. In conclusion I think that this experiment was a poorly conceived work which did not strictly follow the scientific method.
ReplyDeleteThe Stanford Prison Experiment led by Professor Philip Zimbardo was a purely impressionistic type of experiment because of the results obtained and because of how it was developed. The aims of the experiment were to simulate a real prison environment by experimenting it on volunteer students of the same backgrounds. The students were divided into two distinctive groups: "guards" and "prisoners", and each of them had to respect their role according to what they were assigned to be. The experiment took place in some rooms and corridors of Stanford University and these were used to simulate the environment of a real prison. Initially, the results of the experiment were unexpected since the students behaved in a normal way, diversely from the predictions, and no conflicts developed between the two groups. Although, as time passed the students gradually changed behavior. The guards started to over-abuse of their power and the prisoners were "over-reacting" due to the guard’s behavior change. These changes were purely impressionistic. The experiment tried to show how a prison would change the behavior of people but these were not the expected results. The two groups did not change behavior because of the hostile environment, they changed it because the students got tired of what they had to stand. The results were extraordinary because the students became hysterical to such conditions and there was no real change in behavior. The experiment led by Professor Philip Zimbardo had no reliable results at the end since the prison’s circumstances were different from the ones of a real prison. This resulted in such outcomes because the student's behavior was purely hysterical, as they were tired of acting up their parts, rather than because of the prison's circumstances.
ReplyDeleteIn 1971 the psychologist professor of Stanford, Philip Zimbardo realized an experiment, with the aim of showing how people’s attitude changes when put in a different environment. With the help of 24 students, to play the role of both prisoners and guards, the psychology building on the university transformed into a momentary “prison.” The fake prisoners had to experiment the life of true convicts, as well as the guards had to pretend to give orders. Intentionally the experiment had to last 14 days, but because of the unpredicted and shocking results, they were interrupted after 6 days. By the end of the week, the prisoners showed to be extremely stressed, and anxious, as if they were truly living the life of prisoners. In the same way, the guards, emphasized too much their role, and became violent.
ReplyDeleteThe experiment was by no doubts a creative way of showing human behavior, yet as it has been criticized by many to be an example of unethical research. Some of the problems the experiment presented were: the lack of different races used as participants, and therefore the results did not include a broader population. Also, the age of the students was taken into account, as they would have probably have obtained different results if the “actors” would have been older. Although many find the experiment unethical, I believe that the Stanford prison experiment to be a good way of showing and understanding the situations that can influence human behavior. Since human beings have to live certain circumstances in order to understand them better, it was a creative verification of how people are affected by the surrounding. As a result, the experiment was mentioned lately, after the Abu Ghraib situation in Iraq. The prisoners in Iraq, proved to be the real examples of what Zimbardo had attempted to demonstrate in his experiment.
Response to second paragraph:
ReplyDeleteI agree with this second paragraph and its statement that the experiment was “naïve” and basically, useless. Professor Zimbardo wanted to conduct an experiment that attracted college students in need of money before school started up again, and in addition expected them to successfully play the roles of guards and prisoners. The experiment was not only psychologically damaging, as proven by the reactions of the males that were subject to the policies of the prison, but also poorly carried out and thought through. It is quite evident that results of Zimbardo’s simulated prison could not satisfy a general conclusion that a submissive environment affects human behaviour. The subjects that were chosen to do this experiment were “middle-class young men” in need of money and still in process of mental growth. It is evident that they are not suitable, nor prepared for the emotional and psychological impact an experiment such as this one could give. The nature of the whole thing was entirely abstract and did not follow a scientific method. Zimbardo admitted to the inadequacies of his simulation himself because, as mentioned in the comment above, there was “no neautral observer, no independent variable, nothing was measured.” I do believe though, the experiment could be successful but carried out in a more structured and careful manner.
The experiment in my opinion wasn't as scientific and objective as possible. The students had to be monitored by an outsider and had to be them selves. This was contradicted by the fact that that one student was aggressive and heavier by his own will. We can't know s weather the prisoners would have reacted in a different way if the guards maintained their normal characteristic of students and not overly aggressive subjects. The professor was to excited for the experiment to happen to actually take care of the scientific part of the experience. he chose carefully the candidates, but forgot all the rest. It is obvious that the students aware of being watched behaved in a different way so that the experiment would have had the results wanted from the professor. so the experiment was bias. Even if the experiment was bias in my opinion its result's aren't worth nothing. It is possible from the experiment to say that the guards under pressure of the experiment itself decided consciously to act differently in order to give results. the prisoners on the other side acted more naturally feeling trapped and taken advantage of. Some of the prisoners rebelled while others just had to bear the guards. This experiment can't lead to a worldwide conclusion because the human being is special for its individuality. Because of the fact everyone is different in some way it is difficult to make a general statement of world wide human behavior.
ReplyDeleteFlavia Molinari
"Environments powerfully shapes behaviour". This is the sentence that struck me the most while I was choosing which statement to comment. Maybe because when you know that something stated is right, you don't think about it twice, you know that what you are looking at, what you're brain is articulating is true and it cannot be changed. Being a competitive athlete I can confirm the idea suggested by the phrase: environments truly shapes behaviour, whether you are talking about an animal or a human being, it is true. I think that the Stanford Prison experiment was an incredibily daring one. While I was looking at the video I realized with strong amusement that I was literally shocked. It is not easy to accept the fact that the prisoners and the guards,randomly chose to take part in the experiment, were living it as if they were in a real prison. The guards imposed their authority in the minds of the prisoners, damaging them psychologically. The prisoners, on the other hand, abandoned the idea of it being only an experiment, and started to conceive the basement of Stanford's university as if it was a real and proper prison. The positions in which both prisoners and guards found themselves in, the effective visual recreation of a prison, and many other circumstances trasformed the men inside the basement in a real and proper prison community. It is important to highlight that the guards were not the only one to entirely enthrall their "part", the prisoners did too. They felt like real and proper prisoners, and this resulted in madness, and in the willingness to abandon the experiment as quickly as possible. Inevitable duress arised in the environment. The experiment was a very unique one, in the real sense of the word. I think one experiment like this is sufficient to prove how environment powerfully shapes human behaviour, because no other evidence is needed after this.
ReplyDeleteIn 1971, Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues created an experiment that analized the impact of environment on human behaviour. Philip Zimbardo questioned how would paticipants react when placed in a simulated prison environment. Researchers set up a mock prison in the Standford University and selected 24 students to play the role of guards and prisoners. The volunteers that agreed to participate to the one to two week experiment were paid 15 dollars a day. The standford prison experiment had to be stopped after just six days due to the negative psychological impact it had on the student participants. The guards became abusive and started to behave in aggressive ways towards the prisoners. While the prisoners became passive and depressed and began to show signs of extreme stress and anxiety. Many of the prisoners began to experience negative emotions, such as crying, and had to be released from the study early. Only few people were able to resist the situational temptations to yield to power and dominance while maintaining come morality. This experience demonstrates the powerful role that environment can play on human behaviour . Because the guards were placed in a position of power, they began to behave in ways they would not normally act in their everyday lives or in other situations. The prisoners, placed in a situation where they had no real control, became passive and depressed. 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 numerous ethical rules. The guards and especially the prisoners were put under a great deal of stress. This was supposed to be a "safe environment" to study the role of environment on behaviour. Zimbardo did stop the study after six days, however why was it not stopped sooner? This experiment should have been stopped the very first time a beating took place or the first time the prisoners were punished severely. The study is also criticized for its lack of ecological validity. While the researchers did their best to recreate a prison setting, it is simply not possible to perfectly mimic all of the environmental and situational variables of prison life. Despite some of the criticism, the Stanford Prison Experiment remains an important study in our understanding of how the situation can influence human behavior.
ReplyDeleteginevra piersanti:
ReplyDeleteProfessor Philip Zimbardo, psychologist at Standford University, who conducted an experiment called the "Stanford Prison Experiment" (aug. 1971) which reproduced a violent environment was conducted so that it could analyze how a human would act in a difficult envorinment, and cirumstance, but even though it was done in a beneficial way, the experiment was disastrous. Professor Philip Zimbardo did not follow the ethics towards the participants during the experiment by giving them electroshock. Also, professor Zimbardo did not explain in an accurate way what was going to happen to the participants, before starting. Even though it wasen't the guards' fault because they weren't aware of the problems that they were causing to the students by acting such way towards the students. The experiment turned out to be a total disaster, and by being a psychology students I recognize that everything that happend during the experiment was completely unethical. Another disvantage dduring the experiment was the age of the students, because all of the 24 participants were all too youing, and therefore the conclusion of the experiment may be only for young university students. The situation became so brutal that the experiment had to be stopped after only six days. If the study would've done in a preciser way it wouldn't have endend in this brutal way.
The Standford prison experiment was no ethical. It was not coducted properly. Participants were given the role of either a guard or a prisoner. T participants could not distinguish between reality and the experiment. Their mind was shaped by the environment that was around them and caused them to believe that the experiment was real life. Some participants had to quit the experiment. Professor Zimbardo could not be objective as well. There was no scientific method, there was no control variable, nothing. Due to this, the experiment could not be considered scientific and ethical. Participants could not neither be rational nor lucid. This was very damaging in the course of the experiment because it caused to have inaccurate results. The only evident assumption that can be made, is that the mind is very much affected by the environment. Human beings minds and personalities can be changed by the environment they live in.
ReplyDeleteResponse to the second paragraph
ReplyDeleteThe Stanford Prison Experiment was flowed and the results were inconclusive. Primarily let us evaluate the application of the scientific method. The experiment did not have an independent variable. This suggests that the experiment did not have a true goal. Also many controls that can affect the results of the experiment were not controlled. For example, the Doctor was both the psychologist and the warden in the experiment. By doing so, some of the decisions he makes may be affected by the two roles he plays.
The current condition of the participants can also affect the validity of the experiment. The participants were teenagers who were 18-20 years of age. The participants were not mature enough and their decisions were results of their immaturity.
Finally, the experiment was simply unethical. The participants were not aware of the situation they were going to partake in. A counter argument for this claim may be that if the participants were told about the experiment, the overall result may be affected. Nevertheless, the participants should have been informed about the nature of the experiment. Also, when the newcomer went on a hunger strike, the experiment should have been halted immediately and he should not have been in solitary confinement for a long period of time. The experience may affect the participants both physically and psychologically.
As being a psychological study, the Stanford prison experiment had the aim of analyzing scientifically how human behaviour and mental processes are affected by external factors. Being a scientific study, I don’t think that the experiment carried out by Professor Zimbardo was very accurate in assessing the influence of an “evil environment” such as a prison on the behaviour of the participants (being usually well-behaved students). First of all, the students that had to act as guards got carried away with their role, and often exaggerated in the non-sense punishments and violent behaviour, thus almost forcing the results to be as Zimbardo had predicted them, since participants, inevitably, had to rebel or act as submissive prisoners. I also believe that the experiment could have been more accurate if Professor Zimbardo had carried out some research concerning the environment of real prisons. I think he should have visited some prisons, or asked direct information about the behaviour of real guards and the living conditions of actual prisoners. In this way he could have given the guards specific directions about how to behave and the experiment would have resembled more accurately the environment of a prison. In fact, he should have not allowed some “student guards” to take inspiration from movie characters or to carry out “their little own experiment” as one of them declared in the BBC documentary. The difficulty of measuring human behaviour and of identifying its precise causes made the gathering of measurable data to be imprecise, given the complex nature of the human mind and of the actions that derive from its processes. Moreover, the experiment also failed to generalize the results to all human beings, since the sample was composed by participants (middle-class young men) which represented a very small portion of the world population, also considering that this was not a cross-cultural study (the participants were all of Western cultures). Another limitation of this experiment concerns the fact that it can be considered as non-ethical. In fact the participants had to endure a lot of both physical and psychological stress and moreover, they didn’t even know that the experiment would have included such level of psychological violence. In addition, it was not clear if the participants could leave the prison or not. Theoretically, they should have given the participants the right to withdraw from the experiment, but at times the guards seemed to impede the students to go out of the “prison”. Despite all these errors, the negative environment did actually provoke a change in the participants’ behaviour. The behaviour of the guards was probably excessively hostile or was, in any case, not a valid replica of what happens in real prisons. Nonetheless, it certainly didn’t fail to create a hostile environment to which the students responded by showing signs of rebellion, such as refusing to eat, shouting, insulting the “guards” and so on. Other students acted as submissive to the “guards”, beginning to see them as authoritative figures. Even though there are results that could be considered as proving Zimbardo’s hypothesis to be true, there are too many errors to consider such results to be reliable. The results could not be quantified and, because of the sample used, they could not even be used to come to a conclusion on human behaviour.
ReplyDeleteThe Stanford Prison experiment had many flaws. Scientifically speaking there wasn’t an independent variable, thus professor Philip Zimbardo wasn’t actually able to measure the results. Actually the controls were few, the age of the students was similar, but many were the variables. Every student had a different background, and this could be one of the most significant aspects affecting the results. The students who offered to participate at the experiment were probably too young, they didn’t know what they would endure in the experiment, and thus couldn’t predict the way in which they would have to suffer. One of the main problems with the experiment was that the professor didn’t call an unbiased person, who hadn’t interests in the outcome of the experiment. Zimbardo, most of the time, wasn’t in the prison and thus didn’t exactly know what was happening. If a person controlled the behaviour of the students, both guards and prisoners, he could have decided when the experiment was becoming too unethical or violent, and at the same time could have studied the evolvement of their behaviour. The professor didn’t think about the problems which could be encountered during the experiment, but tried to manipulate people, in order to get the results he wanted. He sought to demonstrate that the brutal environment in which people lived for some days would affect their conduct, in a negative way. The experiment thus had mostly flaws, and any conclusions wouldn’t be supported by evidence. The students probably were too few, as well as too young; and thus it wouldn’t be possible to make a general statement about the effect on the behaviour of humans, of all ages, in a given environment.
ReplyDeleteThe aim of the psychological experiment conducted by Professor Zimbardo at Stanford University was to determine the behaviour of individuals once placed in a brutal environment. Will they react to it negatively or will their personalities rise above the situation? Being a psychologist, one would expect Professor Zimbardo to know at least the basic rules that need to be followed in order to carry out the experiment such as; the right to withdraw at any time, or even the fact that the experiment could cause harm to the participants which would indicate that the experiment will not be safe to carry out. However Professor Zimbardo did not put this into consideration but then again, he would not be able to carry out the experiment since very few people will be willing to participate. The way the experiment was set up forced the prisoners to react negatively to the way they were being treated. Some had no choice but to obviously rebel by trying to barricade through their cells while others acted as if they were mentally ill because they could not figure out any other way in which they could be liberated. The students who were assigned as prisoner guards took the experiment to another level because the way in which they played their role forced some of the prisoners to react submissively to their authority. Although some of the prisoners were rebellious towards the power of the guards, others obeyed which actually proved that when in authority people are bound to listen to what you say and respect you. The findings from the experiment were both unethical and inaccurate because of the harsh treatment of the participants and there was no independent variable measured. This experiment proved that by creating a negative environment for the participants, it provoked their negative reaction. The experiment shows more of Zimbardo’s imposure to attain his predicted hypothesis which was that a brutal environment will determine one’s behaviour. However from the results of the experiment yes the brutal environment forced the participants to react in a certain way but also the authority given to the guards contributed to these results and the fact that none of the participants were allowed to withdraw from the experiment.
ReplyDeleteThe controversy between nature versus nurture, can be defined as an individual’s innate qualities versus their personal experiences. This can be shown through Professor Philip Zimbardo’s psychology experiment. The patients that had volunteered to partake in the experiment were not fully aware of what they were getting themselves into. The prison that Zimbardo set up caused the participants of the experiment to react in many different ways: the prisoners reacted in a rebellious way and in a passive resistance manner, whereas the guards reacted in a very dictatorial and dominating manner. This can be shown through patient 8612 and 819’s actions when attempting to stir up a rebellion within the prison. While others reacted with passive resistance and submissively followed the orders that the guards had demanded. Therefore, by looking at the evidence from the Youtube video showed in class, the results showed that only a few prisoners rebelled, while others did not. The innate characteristic of sadism can be shown through the prisoners that had rebelled: patient 8612 and patient 819. The main question that was being addressed to the Zimbardo’s experiment was: “does a hostile brutal environment determine behavior or do people’s personalities rise above it?” With this said, from the footage that we were showed in class, I can surmise that a “hostile brutal environment” both determine the behavior of the prisoner and the prisoner’s personality in the prison. This experiment (excluding its unethical factors) can be used as a good example when attempting to exemplify human behavior. Through each of the prisoner’s actions, it can be shown that each of them reacted in various ways. Therefore, sadism is an innate characteristic for some individuals, but yet, it can also condition individuals to behave sadistically when put in a different environment, from what they are used to.
ReplyDeleteNature or Nurture?
ReplyDeleteBefore trying to analyze this experiment we must define nature and nurture. Nature is the biological factors contributing towards a persons behavior while Nurture is the environmental factors contributing to the persons behavior. Now when we where watching the experiment in class we need to take into account that the participants were not fully aware of the full nature of the experiment and that in itself was unethical. However the volunteers in the study were all middle-class white males and we cannot fully determine how different cultures would react under this situation. However it has been proven throughout history that people will change in hostile environments and the primary focus becomes survival and people begin to concern for only themselves, they change in order to obtain the most benefits for themselves. We must also take into account that they were many different reactions throughout the study and some prisoners would react peacefully while others would react violently and attempt to create rebellions. On the other hands the guards would act in a dictatorial state and attempt to be in full control of the situation.
Finally, the knowledge gained in this experiment was valuable, it proved that the human condition could be altered easily according to environment and people would easily submit themselves to authoritative figures. This experiment proved how nurture can be used as a resource to alter human behavior.
-David Gulliver
The psychologist Philip Zimbardo, professor at Stanford University came up with an experiment to determine whether the human behavior is affected by the surroundings. The Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 consisted in two weeks of time in which fake prisoners, 24 payed undergraduate students, were submitted to the power of others, fake guards who displayed authority and control, and inevitably subjected the prisoners to their abuse and cruelty. The environment was starting to shape these individuals, in fact well-behaved people were being detached from their true personalities and were bending under the submissive atmosphere; including Dr. Zimbardo. The experiment started to degenerate hence it was terminated only after six days, but never the less the psychologist was able to draw a conclusion on human beings and the environment in which they are in. Numerous individuals, due to its tough atmosphere, have classified this experiment as unethical, however it demonstrated that people are affected from their surrounding and it emphasized how fragile a human being is (since it could bend easily under different circumstances). Furthermore, this kind of experiment could have been called such until the situation started slipping out the psychologist hands because then the purpose of it was completely forgot and the fake prisoners and fake guards started believing in their roles. Another problem whit this experiment was that the data recorded weren’t enough to generalize on the entire world population since every individual reacts differently to every situation, beside people of all the same age was chose therefore this could give only results on that certain stage of life neglecting the other stages, hence the experiment wasn’t planned thoughtfully enough by Dr. Zimabrdo. To conclude, in my opinion this experiment was not only unethical and immoral but it didn’t fall under the category of an experiment since there were too many imperfections and the data weren’t wide enough to allow a careful consideration of all human beings.
ReplyDeleteThe Stanford Prison Experiment, designed by psychologist Philip Zimbardo, was set up to determine wether or not the hostile environment an individual is placed in determines behavior, or if an individual's character is the determining factor. The experiment which was conducted in 1971 initially was going to run for 2 weeks, with 24 experimental prisoners. The Zimbardo encouraged the guards to demonstrate physiological abuse towards the students and pushed for his desired results of the experiment. Upon investigation, this experiment had many flaws. It was evident that Professor Zimbardo made his prison simulation provide the results he was looking for in his experiment. His experiment also lacked an independent variable, therefore, data was impossible to collect. The Stanford Prison Experiment proved nothing that we didn't already know before hand. If human beings are put into a situation where they feel threatened or abused, the environment alone is a main contributor to their behavior. After only six days the experiment fell apart due to the fact that the prisoners were outraged at the treatment they were receiving and no longer wanted to take part in the experiment. Some participants believe that the experiment was inhumane and unethical to strive towards conclusions to a psychology experiment without proper means of collecting the data, controlling the variables, or providing a medium third party investigator. Nothing was measured. This experiment failed because it proved nothing. Zimbardo couldnt not possibly make a conclusion based on the experiment that was set up. The young, middle-class men involved in the experiment cannot be enough to provide a result on human behavior in hostile conditions for Zimbardo. In conclusion, the experiment was unethical, harsh, and inhumane. The experiment did not mimic a real situation, therefore the results are faulty and provide no evidence towards solving his hypothesis.
ReplyDeleteProfessor Zimbardo decided to create a typical prison environment to analyze human behaviour. In my opinion Professor Zimbardo chose an unethical method to try and prove his theory.
ReplyDeleteHis attempt to try and recreate a hostile and dangerous environment was successful, but he did not prove anything new. According to me the Stanford experiment was a failure. Though it helped him to prove his theory, he was proving something that was already known.
When humans are confined to a certain area it is in their insticts to do what they feel is best and even if that means they need to resort to dangerous methods.
In the prison, the guards were given more power and they used this to their advantage to mentally and verbally abuse the prisoners who were inferior to them. On the other hand the prisoners were unable to do anything they wished and therefore began to go against one another, if it meant they were going to get freedom.
When the first substitute was called for the experiment, he gladly accepted, but once he entered the prison he realised that the circumstances were very different from what he expected. Unable to do withhold the pressure he went on a hunger strike. This showed the gradual loss of power by the guards as the prisoner was gaining more success in achieveing what he wanted.
This 2 week experiment, was stopped after 6 days as it was considered to b unethical and inhuman. I completely believe that this is true as noone ahas the right to confine humans within an area for an experiment and expect them to behave like thye do in their every day life.
Therefore I certainly agree with the fact that his experiment was conducted in rather harsh conditions and did not simulate a realy life situation, therefore producing inaccurate results.
In class, we watch The Stanford Prison Experiment where they tried to emulate a prison and place collage students in roles some prisoners and others guards. They then watched to see what would happen to them and how their behavior would be affected by the situation. The experiment in my opinion has flaws as you cannot accurately measure human behavior it is very subjective, as each and every one of us acts differently and will act differently in a different situation. Another flaw in my eyes is that the guard sated in the documentary that he thought he should stir things up a bit because that might be what the experiment needed. Therefore the people involved in the experiment were contributing to the experiment by trying to figure out what they thought was needed; this isn’t testing human behavior but creating a false atmosphere. It is also hard to completely isolate what was the true cause of the humans behavior, whether it be that the guard had put him in a bad mood or even that he had not eaten efficiently which caused him to rebel, or was it a number of factors, even the scientists wouldn’t know the answer to thins.
ReplyDeleteThis experiment was to see it was the environment that determines the behavior or the personal characteristics. Therefore is it an instinct that makes our behavior or is it how we are brought up. For the experiment being in harsh situations affected the group of male undergraduates some decided to rebel others tried to leave, they didn’t have a pleasant experience. This though is obvious that when one is put through harsh times and unpleasant atmospheres they wouldn’t be happy, but the way they respond to it is purely subjective. How one is brought up is a contributing factor to one’s life. Some say that if you are raised in an abusive family the child will end up being a bully. At the same time the argument is also partly genetic as some of one’s behavior come from the behavior of their parents. Some scientists believe anger management problems to be genetic.
Putting these young men into that harsh situation was not necessary it put them through a lot of pain for results that are subjective to the people who were involved in that time in their life. Different results would have been gathered had it happened with a different group or even different age. We cannot generalized about the human race from such a small group.
In my opinion, the results of the experiment present significant findings. Although there were no variables, and nothing was measured, the experiment showed that ordinary people that are given power will respond by abusing their power which subsequently causes a reaction within the people being abused. No data had to be measured, simply observing the guards and the prisoners was enough to come to a conclusion. I, however, doubt the conclusion. A similar experiment could have been conducted in class (similar to the experiment in "a class divided"). Subsequently I do not think that this can be considered the role of the prison on the prisoners but as the influence of the punitive guards on the prisoners. Also the sample size of this experiment was perhaps too small. College students, adults and children may react very differently to the conditions, thus more age groups should have been measured and that should have been the independent variable mentioned in the footage. This experiment however did have a good influence in making ethics a primary concern in psychology. The experiment was unethical and made nearly every participant suffer, in the case of the guards most felt guilty while the prisoners felt hopeless and degraded. This experiment was, in my opinion, a valuable contribution to the scientific community since it showed that some experiments should not be conducted due to the suffering they cause and also, once again, proved that people can be mad to do evil if an authoritative figure demands it while the people that suffer cannot rebel and are divided because they fear the guards' power and retribution.
ReplyDeleteThe Prison Experiment carried through at the Stanford University, which we watched in class was un-ethical yet had some logic in it at the same time. The experiment was not done in the correct manner to be able to obtain precise results. The people, as stated in the question paragraph above, were educated students and teachers who had a certain level of knowledge which blocked them from imitating the life of prisoners. The experiment was not completely perfect because the people who were involved did not know what the consequences would be and therefore they may have been psychologically harmed at the end of it all. Some of the people may been hurt in the sense that they feel controlled. Every single being will enter the experiment in a different way and they will all have different reactions, therefore the experiment cannot be considered a good way to generalize a group of people. This experiment could have been carried through with different people, such as old men, or young girls. The results would have been different, both as a whole and also individually speaking. In the end, in retrospect, the experiment was in actual fact improvised theater. The people involved didn’t know what a prison was really like, they imagined it being like it was in the Hollywood movies, films. This experiment also can’t determine whether the group of well behaved middle-class people would behave obediently in prison because in this experiment, they know, deep-down, that it is just an act. It isn’t real life. On top of that, none of the people who were part of the experiment had ever actually been in a prison, therefore they didn’t know what it would feel like to actually legitimately be in prison. To be honest, I would actually enjoy being in that experiment, if I knew what the outcome would be, and if I knew what consequences it would have on me. An experiment such as this one carried out at the Stanford University is not accurate, however it would be a different and entertaining experience to be part of.
ReplyDeleteThe Stanford prison experiment can be argued to be unethical yet in my opinion the experimental results were accurate. The young college students assigned to the experiment might have been naïve and unprepared for what was to come; yet this aspect could have been seen as the dependent variable. Instead of only testing those imprisoned, the guards can also provide significant data as their personalities also changed. These young men didn’t play roles but they became the roles they were trying to play. This differentiates between and acting and reality making the results more reliable. The men were changed psychologically by the experiment they were taking place in which then led them to acting harshly as the guards were and desperately as the prisoners were. This experiment follows the scientific method and to make it clearer, the same experiment could be performed in a smaller scale. For example if one places a giraffe in an area with little water and short trees, the giraffe will alter its behavior and eventually die. This is the same as with the Stanford students. They were placed in a harsh environment they weren’t used to and therefore suffered the circumstances. The only difference is that the Stanford students were experimented on during a short period of time. The time can also be seen as a control as with the number of guards and prisoners. Though the experiment might have produced viable results, the means were inhumane and the experiment should not have been conducted in this manner. There were few benefits to this experiment besides the knowledge that human behavior can change when placed in harsh circumstances. The college students suffered and received little compensation. The experiment could have been conducted using other factors since experimenting with humans is always a difficult and controversial.
ReplyDeleteThe Stanford prison experiment was about how people respond to the authority. The famous psychologist Zimbardo used students from the Stanford university as the participants of the experiment. Some of them became guards some of them became prisoners . The experiment was meant to last 10 days but it was stopped after 6 days because Zimbardo realized that the students have been suffering. At the begging of the experiment there wasn't anything unusual about the behavior of the prisoners and it seemed boring. But after while one of the prisoners ,number 8612 rebelled and from then the guards started to be more strict and violent. We could notice how different prisoners react on the authority. This started to look more like real prison than like some kind of experiment. Than prisoners started coming to Zimbardo and asking if they can leave. Prisoner 8612 left after 3 days because he was put in the small room and he couldn't stand it any more so he started to act as he is going crazy. After this prisoner left the other one came and he started with rebel very soon because he didn't like the way he was treated. He also started to refuse eating, this was one of the main reasons the experiment ended.
ReplyDeleteIt was very brave from Zimbardo to make experiment like this which will involve humans and which can hurt them in any way. For sure those people suffered for while, after and during this experiment .Zimbardo says that he made few mistakes ,like having two rolls that can't actually go together because of this he couldn't control whole experiment otherwise he would stopped it earlier. This experiment proved the point, which means that prisoners couldn't really control their behavior, they were angry and there was no solidarity between them which means that everyone of them wanted to save only their own lives,in this case not save their life but leave the experiment.
Marija
TOVE
ReplyDeleteThe Stanford Prison Experiment can only be used as an example of an unethical experiment, if one for example studies psychology. Then, this would be a perfect example. It is true that there was no scientific method, only a theory that was being tested by improvised theatre. Therefore, there were no useful results of the study hence we cannot determine if a human behavior, in this case cruelty, is substantially determined by environment. It must occur naturally in a natural environment. In psychology we would say that this experiment had a lack of validity, in other words, it was not carried out in a natural setting and therefore it is not valid.
What Zimbardo attempted to do, was to see if any person can turn out evil due to environmental factors, for example being a guard in a prison and have the “right” to punish the prisoners. First of all, the participants were all students. That would probably affect the experiment since the students made the situation personal. Whatever the guards did, the participants only saw them as students, and felt humiliated by the fact that they were under the rule of other students. A sudden change of the ordinary positions of a group of students, and suddenly let some random chosen students have the allowance to scream at others and punish them will not affect their attitude. It is different if there is actually a real situation where the guards are respected and feared because the prisoners are in actual danger.
The human sciences goal is to study the human being with a scientific method. Maybe in this case, an experiment is impossible to carry out. Maybe it could be studied in a natural setting, for example a case study. Since it could be difficult finding such a case, the theory might just have to accept that the phenomenon have occurred in history and might occur in the future due to environmental factors but it just can’t be proved.
Second paragraph:
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the Stanford Prison Experiment which occured in 1971, under the supervision of Professor Philip Zimbardowas, was a total failure. The only positive thing of this experiment was the idea of it, since it was logical and interesting. However, in order to be able to complete this experiment in a more accurate way, many more details should have been analysed before the start. The results were inconclusive, even the scientific method was not applyed correctly. The experiment did not have an independent variable, since nothing has being measured. This suggests that the experiment did not have a concrete and true goal. The "goal" was to see if the human behaviour could change or could be effected, from the location of where an individual can be found. However, none of these two things have been analysed. I agree with what has been stated in the second paragraph: that "there was no neutral observer" and that "many controls that could have affected the results of the experiment were not controlled". For example, the Doctor who was playing both the role of the psychologist and of the warden in the experiment, can be considered one of the main things that affected th experiment in a negative way. This is because, since the doctor was playing two fundamental roles, at the same time, some of the decisions he made may have been affected by the two roles he played.
At the same time, also the same "actors" can be considered a negative side of the experiment. This experiment should have been taken in a very serious way in order to get some real ad realistic results, and not superficially as it was taken in this occasion. The participants did also affect the validity of the experiment, since they were two young and immature to be able to face a serious matter as this one.The participants were teenagers who were 18-20 years of age, and as a consequence the professor should have known that the students wouldn't have acted in the correct way during the experimet. One of the participants even admitted that he was "acting out a sadistic role seen in Cool Hand Luke". This occured also because the participants were not aware of the situation they were going to partake in. Something that may have helped this experiment in order to be done in a more serious and professional way, is that the participants should have known about the experiment and about every single detail of it. At the same time the students, should have been informed about the nature of the experiment, since this could have affected the participants both physically and psychologically.
Alessia
Several experiments have been conducted to see the relationship between humans when given power, as the experiment in Stanford prison tried to show. The Stanford experiment was conducted on the students who represented prisoners as well as student guards to try to prove that racism is bad as well as observing and looking for human reactions when a specific party within several parties is given a greater power. However within a few days in the experiment the students became irrational and were so involved into their given figure, later it became to violent and student guards were harsher than what they should have been, as well as student prisoners felling worse than they should ever have. This caused the shutdown of the experiment, which concludes that it was a wrong motion to start it initially, even though the experiment showed conclusive evidence of what a humans reaction is, it should have never been conducted for several reasons. The first reason is that people should never be put into a position of tension, anger or shock which was caused in this experiment. Secondly because it is unethical to put parties in a position to be punished for who they are. Finally because showing people why something is bad by actually doing it wouldn´t be the right way to approach this specific problem. This experiment could have been done in a more friendly way, and therefore I disagree with the Stanford experiment and say that it was wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe Stanford Prison experiment was an experiment conducted in August 1971 by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. It was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard on people. Twelve students were selected out of 75 to play the prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Another twelve of the same 75 were selected to play the Guards. Roles were assigned randomly to the 24 men. The participants adapted to their roles well beyond what even Zimbardo himself expected, leading the guards to avuse of their power and display authoritarian measures thus subjecting some of the prisoners to torture. The prisoners in turn lost their sense of identity and accepted physical abuse, and, at the request of the guards, readily inflicted punishment on other prisoners who attempted to stop it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who got carried away by the experiment, losing sight of his role as psychologist and permitted the abuse to continue as though it were a real prison. Five of the prisoners were upset enough by the process to quit the experiment early, and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. If one places several well-adjusted subjects into a degrading authoritarian environment, they quickly lose their sense of personal identity and become utterly submissive. I believe it is impossible to measure human behaviour by leading such experiments, because the human character is affected by many things and different people can react differently. I respond positively to both statements made, because I believe that the Scientific Method was well applied for the most part. Nevetheless, it is very difficult to apply the scientific method when trying to analyze human psychology since I don't believe it to be appropriate. Environment does actually shape behavior. The prisoners felt truely oppressed, and they actually believed at a certain point to be in a real prison. On the other hand, there was no actual neutral observer since even Zimbardo himself became part of the experiment, and nothing was actually measured. Therefore, I also agree with the second statement which claims that "the results were impressionistic" and that "the conclusions articulated in the documentary seem to manifest Confirmation Bias". I don't believe that something as complicated as human behaviour can be determined by the analysis of a group as small as 24 students. In conclusion, I believe that to a certain point, both statements have a certain amount of truth, although they are one in contrast with the other. This just goes to shows how complicated and controversial the study of human behaviour actually is.
ReplyDeleteThe Stanford Prison Experiment wasn't very convincing in my opinion, moreover i think that the experiment was very unethical. In first place the students were not fully aware of what was going to happen during the experiment. This may be a positive thing because in this way the students are not going to be biased by their foreward thoughts, but on the other hand it is a very negative aspect because proferor Zimbardo didn't tell the students what was fecing them, and so bring this act to be very unethical. The students could have had mental problems after thus experiment and so Zimbardo got all of the responsabilities. In my opinion this experiment was even useless because i think it is normal that humans that are locked in a simulated jail and treated inferiuorly are going to react in a specific way, which in this case was very shocking. I then believe that Zimbardo can't simbolize the whole umanity in this group of students, because each person is unique and is going to react in a different way to different situations. This experiment was carried out badly in my opinion because it was dangerous for the students health. finally i believe that Zimbardo force the results he wanted to have and by doing that he forgot how dangerous and unethical this experiment was. It is almost impossible to show how the humans and the people behave in different environments, but this experiment forced itself too much and wasen't successfull.
ReplyDeleteIvan