Course Name: Trends & Issues

Nafees Morshed (H00013554)

STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

1. What is the main aspect of social behavior being studied in this experiment?

Main aspect is how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a
role-playing exercise that simulated prison life. Zimbardo (1973) was interested in finding out
whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic
personalities of the guards or had more to do with the prison environment.

For example, prisoner and guards may have personalities which make conflict inevitable, with
prisoners lacking respect for law and order and guards being domineering and aggressive.
Alternatively, prisoners and guards may behave in a hostile manner due to the rigid power
structure of the social environment in prisons. If the prisoners and guards behaved in a non-
aggressive manner, this would support the dispositional hypothesis, or if they behave the
same way as people do in real prisons, this would support the situational explanation.

2. What behaviors are expected in the prisoner and guard “roles”?

Zimbardo observed the behavior of the prisoners and guards (as a researcher), and also acted
as a prison warden. The “prison” environment was an important factor in creating the guards’
brutal behavior (none of the participants who acted as guards showed sadistic tendencies
before the study). The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behavior too. They talked about
prison issues a great deal of the time. They ‘told tales’ on each other to the guards
Guard were expected to be rude, imposing rules to control the prisoners and maintain law in the
premise. They had to be submissive and all power was given to them to control the prisoners.
But the inmates were seized from all sort of freedom, they were completely dependent on the
guards

3. What norms exist in a prison? Why do these norms exist?

Norms which exist in prison are:
1. Strict rules to be followed by prisoners
2. Punishments, like push-ups, or officer stepping or making other fellow inmates to sit on
the other inmates while doing push-ups.
3. Harassing the inmates to the maximum
4. Guards had the power to do anything to maintain the rules
5. Prisoners were not allowed to urinate and they had to do the same inside the jail and at
times were not allowed to change the bucket as well.
These norms exists because, main aim of the government and the guards is to punish the
criminals to the crime they have committed, and keep the society safe. But the rules are very
depressive as the criminals can also become very rebellious later on. The government want the
criminals to realize their mistakes and should commit again.
4. Explain the statement that there is a disconnect between reality and role-playing.

How people play in prison situations, Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University
psychology building into a mock prison. He advertised asking for volunteers to participate in a
study of the psychological effects of prison life, More than 70 applicants answered the ad and
were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological
problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse.
Even though the experiment was not a reality, but role played by the students who were
actually very psychologically healthy became very influenced by the role they were playing.
Prisoners became very depressed and lost confidence while guards became very sadist and
cruel.

5. Consider the psychological consequences of stripping delousing and shaving the

heads of the prisoners. How would this impact a person’s personality in prison? Explain.
The person is losing his identity and self-respect by stripping themselves, delousing and shaving
their heads in front of their other classmates (acting as guards). The person will be very broken
as nothing is more important than one's own self respect and dignity which he is losing.

6. Push-ups were considered mild form of punishment. What is the rationale for the
use of push-ups as a form of punishments?
Initially we thought push-ups is mild form of punishment but later on we realized that that
officers use to step on the prisoners or use to make other fellow prisoners sit on the back of the
prisoner who is performing push-ups.

7. The guards became more repressive as the experiment went on. Why did this occur
despite the fact this was not a “real” prison?
As the guards were given all power to control the inmates, they became more submissive and
they use to be harsher as soon as they found any rebellious prisoner. They got very much
involved into the character that they forgot the fact they were just role playing.

8. What sort of conclusion might be drawn from the results of this study and what is
the implications of these conclusions for our prison system and for the society in
general?

The Stanford Prison Experiment provides valuable insights into the effects of status and
power on individual behavior. The experiment also raises important ethical issues and has
been criticized by many psychologists on ethical grounds. Zimbardo (2013) has addressed
these criticisms by arguing that his study was both ethical and unethical. It was ‘not unethical
because it followed the guidelines’ of the Ethics Committee that reviewed it and approved it.

9. What are the ethical problems with this experiment? Would this study be considered
ethical today? Why? Why not?
The study had many criticism as, participants didn’t know they had to face so much
consequences. The prisoners were not protected from psychological harm, distress and
humiliation. This study will not performed in present time, as the concerns will not allow to
perform such inhumane activities which affects a person’s psychology and physical health.

10. What are the reasons in favour and against such a study? In your opinion was it
right to subject this subjects to this kind of sufferings in exchange for the information
that was gained?

The results of this experiment showed that the behavior of normal, well-educated men can be
significantly affected when a role they are given involves considerable power and status.
Zimbardo (2013) believes that the findings of his experiment can be applied to the harsh and
sometimes inhumane treatment of prisoners in real-life prisons. He believes that ‘prisons are
places that demean humanity and bring out the worst in social relations among people. They
are as bad for the guards as the prisoners in terms of their destructive impact and continue to
be places of evil that are failed experiments.

The participants who were psychologically healthy became depressive and sadist. The
participants who played prisoners went through lot of agony and were very much disturbed
whereas participants playing guard roles became more cruel and harsh.
According to me it's not appropriate to subject the subjects in such a phase as they lose their
identity and become depressed. To understand their sufferings we can go those places and
make a study and then try to improve them.