Stanford Prison Experiment

[blockhead]

Can the situation a person is put in cause them to abandon their morals and commit heinous acts or become victims? This what Doctor Phillip Zimbardo was trying to discover with the Stanford Prison Experiment.

In the summer of 1971, a newspaper ad was put out requesting male volunteers to participate in a mock prison enviorment for fifteen dollars a day. Roughly seventy college men volunteered, and around 24 of the most psychologically sound, with the least history of anti-social behaviors were chosen. The men were split up into guards and prisoners. The guards were in complete control other than not being able to physically abuse the prisoners. The prisoners were abducted from their houses by real police officers and brought down to the "prison"(Stanford's Pschology Department Basement) and forced to where smocks with no underwear, with a chain around their leg.

The prisoners were referred to by numbers to dehumanize them and things like going to the bathroom became a privilege by guard rule. The guards behavior became increasingly sadistic and the prisoners were forced to clean toilets with their bare hands, perform homosexual acts, urinate and defecate in buckets, and forced into confinement cells. The guards used psychological tactics to disperse solidarity in the prisoners by making a "privileged cell" which they would randomly put people in to create distrust between the prisoners.

Due to the escalating sadism and the mental breakdowns of several patients the experiment was shut down after six days when it was supposed to last 2 weeks. The patients were extremely happy, but the guards were dissapointed and confused.

Do you think extreme situations such as this can push normal people to do cruel things with little thought? What are your opinions on the Stanford Prison Experiment? What can we do to help make prisons a place to encourage positive pschological change and not mental scarring? Discuss how the guards were able to commit heinous acts which do not count as physical torture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

[davser]

They re-created this on UK tv a few years back. After a time the people who originally were guards ceded all power to the prisoners who then in turn ordered paramilitary clothes and launched a coup! Needless to say the experiment ended then.

[coheneran]

They re-created this on UK tv a few years back. After a time the people who originally were guards ceded all power to the prisoners who then in turn ordered paramilitary clothes and launched a coup! Needless to say the experiment ended then.

****ing Brits can't take anything seriously.

[davser]

****ing Brits can't take anything seriously.

They took it very seriously. The prisoners gradually eroded the authority of the guards by complaining constantly. This led to the 'guards' feeling sympathetic to them and letting them do what they want. The prisoners then took the logical step of taking over.

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1986889.stm

We wanted to see if those with the power would turn towards tyranny, as in the original experiment, but we found it to be the opposite," said Mr Holmes.

"The guards did not want to adopt their roles. They felt uncomfortable and this made them ineffective, whereas the prisoners were a more unified group."

In fact, the prisoners became such a tight team they staged a break out and wanted to form a commune.

But having found their freedom they had no leader and fell into a "power vacuum" which Mr Holmes said the participants found difficult and ultimately some wanted to set up a tyrannical "society" to restore order back.

[czar]

interesting

[YouGottaBeCrazy]

we did some stuff on this in sociology. pretty interesting

[Jude]

That's some crazy crap. That and many similar findings have convinced me that situations have far more influence on how people act than personality or predisposition.

[blockhead]

That's some crazy crap. That and many similar findings have convinced me that situations have far more influence on how people act than personality or predisposition.
Could you give me some info on these "similar findings"? I'd like to do some more research.

[Cain]

Could you give me some info on these "similar findings"? I'd like to do some more research.

Well, there's that other "failed ethics" sociological case in which a person who was ordered by an authority figure to administer a lethal electric shock to a captive person upon the captive's failure to answer a series of set questions correctly did so with no trouble, as a way to explain the Holocaust. I forget the name of the experiment though.

EDIT: Davser, if that's really true, I'm rather intrigued about the possibility that there might be something uniquely American that led to the results of the Stamford experiment here.

[peeted]

Well, there's that other "failed ethics" sociological case in which a person who was ordered by an authority figure to administer a lethal electric shock to a captive person upon the captive's failure to answer a series of set questions correctly did so with no trouble, as a way to explain the Holocaust. I forget the name of the experiment though.

EDIT: Davser, if that's really true, I'm rather intrigued about the possibility that there might be something uniquely American that led to the results of the Stamford experiment here.
millgrams electric shock experement :thumb:
both millgram and zimbardo offerd extensive counseling and therepy and did frequent checkups on the participants up to 2 years after the origional experiments took place, both profiled there participants to find the most mentaly sound and they checked there hypothesies with other psychologists before carying out the experements, the hypothesies turned out to be wrong obviousley.
in millgrams case they predicted that less than 2% of participants would administer what they thought was a leatal shock wereas allmost 65% did in real life. the experement was cleared to be repeted many times in diffrent circumstances, its findings are very intresting and relevant.

[EinzingerIsGod]

Milgrams experiment is some scary stuff. I saw a video of the procedings, and the fact that some people were able to continue "shocking" others is very interesting and concerning.

[blockhead]

Milgrams experiment is some scary stuff. I saw a video of the procedings, and the fact that some people were able to continue "shocking" others is very interesting and concerning.
Yeah, it's pretty sick. People do adhere to authority that easily though.

[YouGottaBeCrazy]

Yeah, I watched a video of a shock treatment where the guy getting electrocuted wasn't really being electrocuted, he was a hired actor. Is that the one you guys are talking about? The most disturbing part of the video was the fact that some people laughed when they heard the guy screaming from the shocks.

[coheneran]

Well, there's that other "failed ethics" sociological case in which a person who was ordered by an authority figure to administer a lethal electric shock to a captive person upon the captive's failure to answer a series of set questions correctly did so with no trouble, as a way to explain the Holocaust. I forget the name of the experiment though.

EDIT: Davser, if that's really true, I'm rather intrigued about the possibility that there might be something uniquely American that led to the results of the Stamford experiment here.

The experiment you outlined was conducted to see if there was something "wrong" with the German people, they conducted it both in the States and in Europe I think, from what I remember of my psychology class a long time ago.

[peeted]

eye they did it all over the place poor and communist countries had the highest levels of obedience, the other conditions they used were the inclusion of co actors, the experimenter giving instructions over the phone, the experiment being carried out in an office block (as opposed to Yale university) and the participant actually having to physically force the other persons hand onto the plate.

the most sick one was the one were they were just given the stuff and not even told to shock the people but something like 4% just administered dangerous shocks by themselves, just asuming that its what they were supposed to do i guse. its pretty disturbing.

[blockhead]

Do you guys think showing this kind of data to people is unethical since it displays our dark potential? I think it's good for us to know.

[Smokey D]

How could it possibly be construed as unethical to reveal findings of study?

[Jude]

Do you guys think showing this kind of data to people is unethical since it displays our dark potential? I think it's good for us to know.
What kind of question is that?

In any case, I don't think it reveals our "dark" side, just how easily manipulated people are by situational influences and perceived norms.

[blockhead]

How could it possibly be construed as unethical to reveal findings of study?
Some people said those kind of experiments are unethical.

[peeted]

the experiments were arguabley unethical because they didnt gain informed consent, were desietfull and caused long lasting mental harm to some of the participants. that doesnt make the results any less valid or important, it would be a waste of those peoples suffering if nothing even came from it.

[Jude]

Some people said those kind of experiments are unethical.
They were by today's standards, but that's the beauty of experiments done before ethics were invented. They revealed things we would have a much harder time finding out now BECAUSE of strict ethical codes.

[Smokey D]

Some people said those kind of experiments are unethical.

Ah, it's an entirely different question whether it's unethical to carry out such studies rather than reveal the findings of a study already carried out.

[Orange Piggy]

The problem is that the experiment is rather unreliable. The sample was tiny for a psychological observation, another similar experiment contradicts this one and Zimbardo admitted that he got too into role half way through. To draw any reasonable conclusion from this all requires further experimentation with larger samples and a more strict control of variables. Even if ethical considerations were ignored, I'm not sure too many researchers have the funding for such a project. If they do, then they're probably not being funded to publicly release such sensitive information.

If you do think the results were accurate however, then by all means learn from it. Drawing conclusions from an unethical experiment doesn't make the conclusion itself unethical. Thats like secretely feeding someone a drug, watching him die, and then saying "Oops, that was unethical! Looks like I'll have to forget that this thing is lethal."

[davser]

EDIT: Davser, if that's really true, I'm rather intrigued about the possibility that there might be something uniquely American that led to the results of the Stamford experiment here.

The difference in the UK version was that the researchers were no way involved with being either guards or prisoners. In the Stanford experiment the researcher was himself a guard and it is thought that the other guards took their lead from him and when he didn't rebuke them for their more disagreeable behaviour they took that as tacit approval for their actions. From then the behaviour started to escalate to an unacceptable level leading to the experiment being stopped.

[coheneran]

The difference in the UK version was that the researchers were no way involved with being either guards or prisoners. In the Stanford experiment the researcher was himself a guard and it is thought that the other guards took their lead from him and when he didn't rebuke them for their more disagreeable behaviour they took that as tacit approval for their actions. From then the behaviour started to escalate to an unacceptable level leading to the experiment being stopped.

I saw a quote once: "Most people don't use their initiative because no one told them to." I thought it's rather apt.

In the Stanford experiment he didn't play a guard, he played the prison warden, but he still had a pretty direct role in the goings-on, like on one occasion, one of the "prisoners" said he wanted to quit, and so he got sent up to the "Warden's Office" to talk about it, and while they were talking the guards made the other prisoners chant loudly "Prisoner 532 is a bad person, prisoner 532 is a bad person." And then prisoner 532 (or whatever his number was) broke down in front of the "Warden" and said he doesn't want to quit anymore because he doesn't want the other prisoners to think that he was a bad person.

[Chrizzle fo' Shizzle]

If you kick a junkyard dog every day for five years, he's not going to wind up being man's best friend

[coheneran]

If you kick a junkyard dog every day for five years, he's not going to wind up being man's best friend

I don't think I understand the context of the analogy.

[Rounder]

You can come to a conclusion about it in 5 minutes watching one of those 'worlds wildest videos' and see people turn into irrational monkeys after super bowl wins, soccer games, and concerts.