ZIMBARDO STUDY

Bilal Pretish Abhijeet Gaurish

Agenda

Introduction to the Topic

Goals and Methods
Results
Conclusion
Criticism
Q and A

Introduction

Born March 23, 1933; in New York

Professor at Stanford University

Majors in anthropology, psychology, & Sociology from

Brooklyn College in 1954
In the year 1971, Zimbardo accepted a tenured position
as professor of psychology at Stanford University

There he conducted the Stanford prison study, in which

24 normal college students were randomly assigned to
be "prisoners" or "guards" in a mock prison located in
the basement of the psychology building at Stanford.

Basic Concept

How a person can turn into Evil?

The exercise of power to intentionally harm
(psychologically)
hurt physically
destroy morally and commit crimes against
humanity

Goals and Methods

To test the hypothesis that the inherent

personality traits of prisoners and guards are
the chief cause of abusive behavior in prison
24 normal college students were randomly
assigned to be "prisoners" or "guards" in a
mock prison located in the dungen of the
psychology building at Stanford.
Tenure 14 days
12 prisoners and 12 Guards
The prisoners were "arrested" at their homes
and "charged" with armed robbery

Results

Day1: Uneventful
Day2: Rebel, Guards fight back. Mental
break down of prisoners
Day3: Hunger Strike, guards aggression
escalates, basic amenities removed
Day4: continued escalation
Day5: continued escalation
Day6: Zimbardos girl friend Masloch
intervines and zimbardo ends the
experiment

Conclusion

Criticism

Dr Zimbardo influenced the direction of

the experiment as its "superintendent".
Conclusin and observations drawn by
the experimenters were largely
subjective and anecdotal, and the
experiment would be difficult for other
researchers to reproduce
The experiment was unethical and
unscientific