Abu Ghraib Prison and Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) were notorious and highly controversial detention centers. Abu Ghraib Prison, for instance, was a United States Army detention center for capturing Iraqis during the Iraqi war. A study into the prison reveals that it was notorious for all kinds of physical abuse including torture, sexual abuse, and rape; regular executions, and atrocious living condition for the prisoners. SPE, on the hand, is famous in the history of psychology. Although a social psychology experiment designed to examine the psychological effects of perceived power, early reports indicate that it subjected prisoners to dramatically horrifying mental torture. Events and their consequences at both the detention centers are attributed to underlying values.
The situation in both cases was complicated, and it was difficult for the participants to make the right decisions and take reasonable actions. The results of both situations compelled many to raise concerns about questionable ethics and legal requirements. Laws and ethical principles in the United States stress on human dignity and protection of individual rights regardless of circumstances. As such, doing the right thing, for either SPE or Abu Ghraib Prison, the participants should have emphasized on upholding their moral values and recognized ethical principles to perform their duties without necessarily harming, in one form or another, their subjects.
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The participants, guards in SPE and Abu Ghraib, did not do the right thing, however, because of situational factors. This is explained by several scientific explorations into the two incidents to attempt to shed light on possible contributing factors to the abuse of prisoners. Two of these studies are by Phillip Zimbardo (2016) and Eileen Zurbriggen (2008) who draw interesting conclusive remarks about the relationship between the psychology of evil and human nature. At this point, both cases exhibit significant similarities on a psychological level. For example, behaviors of the participants in both the scenario are indicative of the power of abusive situations to influence good people to engage in vile behaviors. This alone provides a sufficient description of why the participants did not make the right decisions in their positions.
In spite of the similarities between the two incidences, SPE and Abu Ghana differed significantly. While the SPE was a controlled social psychology experiment, Abu Ghraib Prison was an actual situation. Therefore, factors influencing behaviors of the participants could not have been the same. SPE was essentially about situations inducing people to behave in evil manners; for Abu Ghraib, it was more than that. It involved authority and peer pressure leading people to disregard the hurtful consequences of their actions (Konnikova, 2016). Whereas the force to commit to harmful actions came from within for participants in Zimbardo’s SPE, this and external forces like authority from people in a position of power in the US army contributed to behavioral problems among soldiers in the detention center.
The objective of SPE was to demonstrate the power of situational forces to override individual choices and dispositions. That of Abu Ghraib was to draw critical information from detainees and instill punishments. Events surrounding both cases are proof that situations can drive good people into despicable behaviors even though this was not the intention of Abu Ghraib prison. The psychological aspect tied to both circumstances reveals undisputable similarities. In essence, the argument both the experiences are trying to communicate is that personal values and morals sometimes do not matter.
References
Konnikova, M., (2016). The real lesson of the Stanford prison experiment. Perspectives on Contemporary Issues , 318.
Zimbardo, P., (2016). Revisiting the Stanford prison experiment: A lesson in the power of the situation. Perspectives on Contemporary Issues , 309-317.
Zurbriggen, E. L., (2008). Sexualized torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison: Feminist psychological analyses. Feminism & Psychology , 18 (3), 301-320.
