Laurence Sterne intimates that every action that follows the creation of a hypothesis serves to nourish it. He implies that it dominates the mind of the individual such that all efforts are diverted towards bolstering it. The Stanford Prison Research was commissioned by the United States Naval Research office in an attempt to examine psychological consequences of apparent power (Stanford University, 2010). The aim was to find the out the cause of strife between prisoners and guards in the Navy and the Marine Corps facilities and by extension whether the ruthlessness reported among correctional officers in American penitentiaries was as a result of the inherent sadistic tendencies of the correctional officers or was caused by the situational environment (Sterne, 2010).
The lead scientist, Dr Zimbardo's aim, was to test the hypothesis that basic character traits of the guards and prisoners were the primary cause of the violent and abusive behavior in the prison facilities. He is of the school of that argues that the environment has an effect on the behavior of people and not personality traits. Therefore if the test subjects did not react aggressively in this simulated environment, it would then disprove Dr Zimbardo's hypothesis (Zimbardo, 2000).
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The experiment involved recruiting and selecting participants who were healthy and psychologically stable. It meant that they had to undergo rigorous medical, physical, and mental exams to qualify. The selection process deliberately excluded those who had criminal backgrounds, mental and medical problems. The successful applicants were divided into two groups; half were guards and the other half prisoners. They agreed to participate in the experiment for a total of 7 to 14 days and receive a stipend for their services. The individuals who were selected to represent prisoners for the experiment were put in detention. They were then stripped off their clothes and all their belongings confiscated and later put in put prison cells. The cells were mock-ups that were set up in the psychology department at the University. The guards were all dressed up in khaki uniforms (Book on demand, 2012).
Dr Zimbardo designed the experiment to guarantee de-individualization, de-personalization and disorientation amongst the prisoners. He instructed the guards to engage in tactics that would instill fear in them, give them a feeling of boredom and hopelessness. He wanted them to feel powerless in the situation. To make them feel de-personalized, he ensured that the prisoners were addressed by their identification numbers, not their names and they gave them uniforms to get rid of their individual identity. He told the guards to disrespect the prisoners in various ways except to make them lose their individuality. All these actions had the effect of making the prisoners feel like they had no control of the situation and therefore gave up.
After a few days both the test subjects had settled in and some of the guards begun pestering the prisoners even displaying brutal and sadistic tendencies and reportedly even enjoying it. The rest of the guards would not object or try to stop this torturous behavior, and sometimes they would even join in. The inmates began to develop inmate-like manners like discussing matters relating to incarceration issues every chance they got. They spread lies about each other to the correctional officers and even began strictly adhering to the jail instructions like they would in reality where the violation would course problems for all of them. A few even started supporting the correctional officers to incriminate inmates who flouted the rules.
During the exercise, the interactions between the correctional officers and the inmates transformed. The correctional officers were completely in charge of the situation, and the prisoners were reliant on them. As the reliance became more apparent, the correctional officers became increasingly scathing towards them, utterly despising the detainees without hiding this fact from them. While the guard's disdain for the inmates grew, they became more subservient, and the guards got increasingly violent and forceful. They commanded, even more, compliance from the inmates as they continually became reliant on the guards. They thus looked for ways to gratify the correctional officers to gain favor.
Ultimately this poor treatment of the prisoners led to a rebellion on day two where the prisoners removed their identification numbers and blocked the doors their cells with their beds. The guards reacted by spraying a fire extinguisher at the inmates which served to force them from the entrance. They then forced their way into each of the cells; the forced the inmates to remove their clothes and move their beds outside. The instigators of the inmate rebellion were later taken away and put into separate units.
Following this incident, the correctional officers continued hassling and terrorizing the inmates. Such was the severity of the guards' actions that one inmate had to be let out midway through the study because he began suffering from uncontrollable episodes of shouting and rage. His thought process became disoriented, and he looked to be in the early stages of deep melancholy. He was just the beginning, and three others would leave in the next few days, after displaying serious signs of emotional disorder. All this is despite the fact that all the participants had been evaluated and pronounced stable and standard as part of the selection exercise.
The original plan was for the exercise to run for two weeks, but it had to be terminated on the sixth day. One of the staff members that Dr Zimbardo invited to interviews with the correctional officers and inmates heavily criticized the study upon seeing inmates suffering at the hands of the guards. Dr Zimbardo later noted that he had himself been too engrossed in his role in the experiment as a prison superintendent to notice the damage that was being afflicted. It was not until it was pointed out that he became aware how deeply engrossed he was into his role to the point of acting out like a prison superintendent rather than a researcher (Films Group, 2017).
The consequences of the findings of this experiment help us realize that individuals will readily follow to societal expectations particularly if the expectations are powerfully stereotyped. The custodial setting heavily influenced the correctional officers' ruthless conduct because initially none of them showed aggressive propensities before the exercise began. Therefore, we can conclude that the outcome backs the situational explanation theory of behavior and not the dispositional theory.
The exercise has received many condemnations because it is almost impossible to replicate such a study. Dr Zimbardo also failed to obtain full informed consent from participants because he did not know what to expect in the experiment. The inmates had also not given consent to their idea of arresting them at their homes. It was because the police gave their approval only moments before the successful candidates agreed to proceed with the exercise. The researcher team preferred that they are taken into custody unexpectedly. This act alone was a breach of the ethics articulated in Zimbardo's contract that was signed by the participants (Sternberg et al., 2015). The inmates were also not secure from mental detriment, evidenced by exposure to action that caused embarrassment and suffering like the prisoner who had to be let out within two days for dealing with the guards' brutal treatment (Stanford University, 2010). Furthermore, there are unconfirmed reports that claim that the United States government's chief interest was to find methods to enable people in the armed services manage pressures of imprisonment (Nier, 2010).
However, Zimbardo argues that the emotional suffering experienced by the inmates could not have been foreseen and mitigated when the study was being planned. Approval for the study was provided by the Naval Research Office and other bodies which also did not anticipate that the inmates would exhibit such extreme responses during the study. Different methodologies were considered that could have resulted into mild negative impact on to the partakers and still attain the preferred result, but none were satisfactory (Zimbardo, 2015). Dr Zimbardo conducted all-encompassing group and individual debriefing sessions on all partakers. He started some few week later then followed up a few months later, then at yearly intermissions. All sessions confirmed that there were no permanent harmful effects because of the study. He also submits that the gains in the comprehension of social conduct learned from the experiment should have balanced out any anguish caused (Stohr et al., 2015)
The Tristan Shandy quote does not necessarily refer to a good quote but rather depicts a situation where a researcher can be too biased to think outside the context of the theory. In this case, they can do anything and even ignore rules that are in place to maintain the integrity of the study. We see Dr Zimbardo by his admission getting so involved in the day to day running of the study that he ignores the atrocious conditions that develop until an outsider points it out. He even disregards his rules when the prisoners are arrested.
References
Films Media Group,, & Video Education Australasia. (2017). The BBC Prison Study .
Nier, J. A. (2010). Taking sides . New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Stanford University. (2010). Quiet rage: The Stanford prison experiment . San Francisco], California: Internet Archive.
Stanford University. (2010). Quiet rage: The Stanford prison experiment . San Francisco], California: Internet Archive.
Stanford University. (2010). Quiet rage: The Stanford prison experiment . San Francisco], California: Internet Archive.
Sternberg, R. J., & Fiske, S. T. (2015). Ethical challenges in the behavioral and brain sciences: Case studies and commentaries .
Sterne, L. (2010). Works of Laurence Sterne . Boston: MobileReference.com.
Stohr, M. K., & Walsh, A. (2015). Corrections: The essentials .
Zimbardo, P. G. (2015). Phil Zimbardo on the Stanford Prison experiment, evil and heroism .
Zimbardo, P. G., & Anarchist Black Cross. (2000). The Stanford prison experiment . Austin, TX: Austin ABC.
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