Jennifer Delgado

Social Psychology 1

Essentially, social scientist Milgram and Zimbardo opposed conventional western wisdom that
had emphasized the individual as being completely in control and therefore, responsible of his or her own
actions. Through Milgram’s Obedience Experiment and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE),
they concluded that situational factors are the most “important determinant of social behavior”
(Brannigan). In his narrative, ​The Lucifer Effect​, Zimbardo lists the roles, norms, dehumanizing process,
and conformity pressures as driving situational forces that framed the behavior of the actors within his
experiment, which could easily be applied in other similar, institutional circumstances. Clearly, Milgram
and Zimbardo were inclined to the deterministic sociological perspective discussed in class, rather than
the volunteeristic one, as they were convinced that “pre-existing structures determine how we see and
experience the world.”

On page 212, Zimbardo mentions the relevance of culture in the intent to understand the
relationship between the way people explain the actions of others and the effect the predispositioned
values of that particular society has in framing their understanding. He explains that “a powerful mental
bias” sculpted through the culture, such as that in the United States that promotes individualism, limits
our capability to practice the attributional charity. In the U.S. there is definitely a major theme of self-help
and an implied belief that if one wants to progress socially or economically, they ought to do so on their
own. In other words, without government help. Because of this logic, many people in the States look
down upon those who receive federal funds to survive. Another perspective Zimbardo interrogated was
economic class. He admitted that he chose subjects who were well-educated and middle-class instead of
lower-class participants because he expected his selected few to have a sense of respect for authority. Did
he do this to avoid physical conflict? Zimbardo’s selection process proves he had expectations for the
result of the actions of the prisoners. I think this is particularly contradictory because his whole argument
is based on the deterministic perspective; however, if he chose a particular economic group for fear of the
actions that lower-class participants could act in an unwanted way, then is he not implying that the
background of an individual does in fact matter in how they react in a situation? Being a scholar in
Gender Studies, I found it interesting that those guards who scored the highest on the “masculinity”
characteristic, Hellman and Arnett, stood out due to their sadistic behavior towards the prisoners.
Hellman’s use of homophobic exercises and dominant behavior outlines that there is surely a toxic trait
behind how we define masculinity as a society, and portray it to others. This is also evident in the
“Standard Operating Procedure” film, where the guards intentionally used female authority figures to
demean the prisoners. To my understanding, because of the background and beliefs the prisoners held
about women, the fact that women were playing a main role in torturing them was something that the
guards believed would diminish their confidence. However, the fact that these women had to play such a
terrible role to be respected and that being treated wrongly ​specifically​ by a women is considered the
worst situation for a man, is ridiculous. This returns to the need to redefine femininity and masculinity.

While watching “Standard Operating Procedure” (SOP) and reading ​The Lucifer Effect, ​I realized
that many, if not most, of the social processes to evil discussed in class intertwined with the literature. It
was evident that the guards in SOP came into the institution knowing something was wrong about the
situation they were put into; however, the consciously decided to play a part. On the other hand, the
simulation of guard and prisoners in Zimbardo’s experiment became “all too real” in a short period of
time. Slowly, the students started to slip into their roles; the prisoners rebelled and the guards began the
mistreatment. Without a doubt, there was a process to dehumanize the prisoners in both events through
physical, mental, and emotional torture and aggression. Interestingly enough, it was recorded in
Zimbardo’s novel that the own prisoners in the SPE would not refer to their individuality when allowed
private time with their cellmates. Instead of trying to get to know each other, they only spoke of their
conditions in that basement-prison and perceived others in the way they acted in that specific
environment. Unintentionally, the own prisoners began to view each other as the roles they were playing-
dehumanizing one another. The diffusion of responsibility is a characteristic most obvious among the
guards. Simply sharing the same uniform or working for the same people was enough to reduce individual
responsibility through group involvement. In SOP, when reflecting on their past, many of the guards
admitted to initially questioning others’ behavior; however, because of the facility to conform instead of
confronting a situation, they either became part of the cruelty or became a bystander through passive
tolerance.

My greatest concern is that these results proved that anyone, put under the right conditions, could
be a perpetuator of evil. However, the Stanford Prison Experiment and the events at Abu Ghraib have
proven that the system of prisons is “society’s failed experiment,” as Zimbardo described it. So this being
the case, how can our society create a different institution that better develops a respectful, civil
individual? Also, if physical proximity to an individual is supposed to create a feeling of responsibility
over the other person, why is this not the case in SOP or SPE?