A REACTION PAPER on Stanford Prison Experiment

First of all, I literally don’t have an idea what this Stanford Prison Experiment is. This is
my first time knowing about this experiment and I’m a bit curious of what is this all about.
While watching the first part of the first video explaining about how this Stanford Prison
Experiment started and the incident at Abu Ghraib, I really don’t know what to feel about seeing
those prisoners being forced to be naked in the hallways and being humiliated and dehumanized
by the guards. It is very unusual to me seeing those incidents and it is very immoral.
So in the Stanford Prison Experiment, there were 24 participants involved in the study
and they were divided into two groups: the guards and the prisoners. They recreated the situation
or environment held in the prisons and to my surprise as the experiment goes by, such an
unbelievable behaviour was arouse and the experiment went wrong. Since the study is all about
the psychological effects of perceived power, the guards were given the power to control and
have authority in the situation but they took advantage of the power given to them. At the 2nd
day of the experiment, they started doing things that anyone could never imagine doing it,
punishing the prisoners even in just a small mistake, and abusing and torturing them. I feel really
pissed off watching the guards do unethical things to the prisoners because the prisoners do not
deserve to experience those things. Also, I feel really bad for the prisoners because they haven’t
done anything wrong, they just there for the participation of the experiment and money but they
have to endure all the punishments and torture given by the guards. It is so sad hearing and
seeing their emotional breakdown and they were really stressed out and traumatized of the
situation they were in. But it is a good thing that the experiment ended quickly because I can’t
bear watching the prisoners being humiliated and abused.
As I watch more about the Stanford Prison Experiment, I learned more about it and able
to understand clearly the objective and purpose of this experiment. Moreover, there is a group of
people who wish to recreate the Stanford Prison Experiment but in the different way. I am
curious by how this will be done since they want to make this in an ethical way and still focused
on the main objective of the Stanford Prison Experiment. After all the preparations and
experimentation, they reached a different result from what the Stanford Prison Experiment
concluded. It seems that every person who had given a chance to have power over something,
still depends on him or her if he or she will do the things being told or not.
After learning all the information about the Stanford Prison Experiment, there is still a lot
of question wandering into my mind and also makes us ask this question: “Is evil caused by the
environment or the personalities in it?” In my opinion, what makes a person do cruelty is when
in return for something useful, he or she is forced to do something or when they know that there
is someone who wants them to do so. People are very selfish sometimes and they tend to worry
about themselves and forget how they can influence other persons.