Purpose
Alongside his colleagues from Stanford University, Philip Zimbardo carried out the Stanford Prison Experiment in August 1971 (Zimbardo, 2008). In the psychosocial research, college students became guards or prisoners in a simulated environment. The study was interested in establishing if the viciousness recounted among guards in American correctional officers was a result of the guards’ atrocious temperaments (dispositional factors) or the prison environment was a significant influence (situational factors).
Participants
The researchers picked 24 undergraduate students randomly to assume the prisoners and guards’ roles. They were from a large group of 75 volunteers, and the inclusion criteria included no significant medical conditions, criminal background, and psychological issues.
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Methodology
The study site was a simulated prison including three prison cells with six by nine-foot dimensions. Each cell had three cots and three prisoners. Crosswise from the cells, there were other rooms used by the warden and jail guards. A small room functioned as the prison yard, and one tiny space was designated as the solitary confinement room.
The 24 participants were allocated to either the guard or the prisoner group randomly. There were ten prisoners, eleven guards, two reserves, and one participant dropped out of the study. The Palo Alto police department arrested those allocated to play the prisoner role. They were also deloused and made to wear prison garments and chains then sent to the makeshift prison at the psychology department’s basement at Stanford. During the experiment, the ten prisoners were instructed to stay in the pseudo prison for 24-hours each day. Guards were to work for eight hours per shift and three men in each team. The correctional officers’ role was to administer the 16 rules to make sure that there was a judicious degree of order in prison (Tarasewicz, n.d). They were not allowed to use physical aggression or punishment on the prisoners. Guards were allowed to go back home after each shift until their next shift. Data collection combined both qualitative and quantitative approached. The participants completed questionnaires detailing their socio-demographic data. Hidden cameras and microphones were installed in the mock prison to observe the guards and prisoners’ behavior. The qualitative data was obtained via direct observation, audiotape, and videotape.
Dependent and Independent Variable
The resulting behavior of the prisoners and guards is the dependent variable. For instance, the level of punishment imposed on the prisoners by the guards and their reaction to the punishment. The independent variable (IV) was the participants’ conditions as either a guard or a prisoner. The IV manipulation entailed randomly allocating the participants to either the guard or prisoner’s role in a mock prison environment.
Outcome
After a very short period, both the guards and prisoners were adjusting to their new characters, with the guards doing it easily and quickly. Some guards started harassing the prisoners, blasted whistles at 2.30 am to awaken prisoners from sleep, and exercised their control over the prisoners (Tarasewicz, n.d). They taunted prisoners with petty orders, insults, boring and pointless tasks, and were dehumanized. On the other hand, prisoners also adopted prison-like mannerisms. Most of the time, they talked about prison lives and reported one another to the guards. They strictly followed the prison rules and tried to avoid the serious consequences of infringement. Push-ups became a common approach to physical punishment (Tarasewicz, n.d). The experiment was meant to go for two weeks but was halted after six days after the guards became aggressive and insulting towards prisoners while prisoners became depressed and passive.
Important Contributions to Understanding Human Behavior
Situations can play a powerful role in human behavior. The prison set-up was a key factor in forming the guard’s vicious conduct since none of them showed sadistic tendencies beforehand.
One’s disposition does not necessary influence their behavior.
Individuals conform to social roles, even when the role goes against moral principles.
Ethical considerations
Right to withdraw : the right to withdraw from the study was revoked which goes against the fundamental tenet of ethics of not soliciting participation under coercion
Deception/Informed consent : The participants were not fully educated about the conditions they would experience, such as being arrested.
Debriefing : Presently, a post-experimental debriefing is regarded as an important ethical consideration. In the study, a debriefing was not done until several years later when it was challenging to determine the level of psychological harm.
Protection from harm : Participants assuming the prisoners’ role were not safeguarded from physical and psychological harm.
The study would have been more ethical by ensuring that the participants were safeguarded from psychological and physical harm, debriefing them immediately after the experiment to access the level of physical harm, reminding them that the experiment was voluntary and they could withdraw from it anytime, and ensuring that they are fully informed on the extent of the experiment.
Role of Social Experiments in the Real World
Social experiments are employed to test a hypothesis and confirm or disconfirm a general preposition about human behavior in society, which might afterward become the basis for developing a social program. The experiment shows that people’s behavior relies on not only their disposition but also the situations and environments around them.
Power of the Situation
The power of the situation infers that one’s behavior is due to situational factors. In the experiment, the participants adopted their new roles as prisoners and guards, which subsequently determined how they behaved. Situations can bring out the worst in people, as observed with the cruelty of the guards. If I had participated in the experiment, it would have helped me learn a lot about human nature and myself. It would have taught me that people’s behavior could be explained by the notion that they are mostly assuming the characteristics of the role assigned to them by society. It has also helped me understand justice and morality.
References
Tarasewicz, J. (n.d). Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment . Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=eo5DjGeT9Dg
Zimbardo, P (2008). The psychology of Evil. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil
