The Stanford Prison Experiment Defining Morality

of or pertaining to the distinction

between right and wrong or good and evil

in relation to an action volition or

character of responsible beings

this is the definition of morality

according to the oxford english

dictionary

on august 14th of 1971 the stanford

prison experiment was underway at

stanford university

the overseer of this experiment and the

prison superintendent

was philip zimbardo along with his

fellow colleagues craig kenny

w curtis banks and david jaffe

24 male college students were chosen out

of 75 volunteers

to be paid 15 a day to be a part of a

prison simulation

nine were chosen to be guards nine were

chosen to be prisoners with six

alternates

all prisoners were arrested at their

homes for armed robbery and burglary

told their right spread eagle in a

handcuff to be hauled into the back of a

police car and sent

straight to stanford county jail

they were all subjected to a uniform a

simple beige dress with an id number and

a cat made from a woman’s stocking

during this experiment it was important

to degrade the prisoners

by stripping them of their manhood and

their identity the guards also had a

uniform

one that they were told to wear with

pride along with black shades that took

away their humility and further severed

the emotional connection between

the two groups they had no training but

were instead told that they could do

whatever they pleased and were actually

told that they could degrade the

prisoners themselves

now with all of this background

information you might be thinking

why is this important why should some

science experiment matter to me

who is this girl and why does she care

about this she’s kind of freaking me out

the fact is that this simple experiment

would influence psychologists idea of

the human mind

and the way that we think about

ourselves now before i go further and in

case you’re still confused on how a

simple experiment could go wrong

let me leave you with this simple fact

the stanford prison experiment was

scheduled to last

two weeks the abuse against the

prisoners got so bad that they had to

end the experiment after

six days according to the official side

of the experiment

the purpose was to understand the

development of norms and the effects of

roles

labels and social expectations within a

simulated prison environment

however i think we’re able to see more

than just the insight

of the harming psychological damage done

within the prison system

and we’re able to see the true

ideologies that live within

all of us the prisoners were harmed

and there were many instances of showing

rebellious nature and resistance against

both the guards and the jail system

itself

not even 48 hours after the start of the

experiment the prisoners barricaded

their cells

they began taunting the guards and they

took off their caps

and by the fifth day the prisoners had

conducted an elaborate escape plan to

free themselves

though both of their uprisings were

failures and were met with punishment

were able to see that in a short span of

time the prisoners felt

trapped and had a distinct primal sense

and need for

freedom the guards were very very harsh

on the prisoners

and gradually their abuse increased over

time and it started

to get out of hand especially for john

wayne

the prison guard known for his lethal

abuse of the prisoners and his

western cowboy personality wayne

explained that he was conducting his own

personal experiment

seeing how far he could go and really

taking his role seriously

he explained that no one stopped him or

objected to his actions

pushing him into his role even further

he devised

horrible ways to despise the prisoners

and one of his orders ultimately led to

the termination of the experiment as a

whole

the guards had sprayed the prisoner with

a fire extinguisher

they had used other harsh punishments

like push-ups

they made sure to degrade the prisoners

in horrible ways like stripping them of

their manhood

and with that zimbardo ended the

experiment

in 2008 he confessed it wasn’t until

much later that i realized how far in my

prison

role i was at that point and i was

thinking more like a prison

superintendent

rather than a research psychologist

this experiment shows us how roles and

labels in society affect us in our

mental state

and how we can begin to settle into a

role so much that we begin to lose the

sense of who we are

they suffered from de-individuation

acting with what they believed were

normal for the roles that they played

they even felt that they would be

positively recognized by zambardo

if they abused the prisoners

the guards were horrible to the

prisoners though it’s scary to think

that they’re just

ordinary people in the beginning of the

experiment the thing that separated

guards from prisoners

was the simple flip of a coin the fact

is that

none of these people were horrible or

bad the badge brought out the cruel and

unusual side of the prisoners

the stanford prison experiment has been

both highly praised and criticized for

not only its ethics but its accuracy as

well

in the beginning of the experiment there

were questions over the consent of the

experiment

as the prisoners did not agree to be

arrested at their homes

though the researchers believed that it

would provide the same authentic shock

that came with being arrested

arguably breaching their signed

contracts

the prisoners were harmed in many ways

through bursts of screaming

crying and anger so in zimbardo’s

defense he did not know that the

prisoners would be harmed in any way

he still strongly argues that there were

many benefits to the experiment

providing psychological insight and

information about the human mind

one of the largest criticisms that

zimbardo received was that the

researchers gave specific instructions

to the guards to abuse the prisoners

warping and distorting the data of the

experiment his reply

was simply that he did not give

instructions on how to be an effective

guard

only that they had to assert their

authority and recreate certain negative

emotions associated with being

imprisoned

whether you believe that the stanford

prison experiment is morally right or

wrong factually correct or incorrect

there’s no denying that it revealed a

truth about our personalities and our

souls

i encourage you to do your own research

and a look further into the experiment

if you want to form your own opinion

taking a look at the official side of

the experiment reading the novel

explaining data and research

or even watching the film by kyle

patrick alvarez

zambardo explained in a figure up for

the film we all want to believe

in the power of free will that our

decisions come from

within some magical place that we choose

our destiny and we take it

and it says no no you take really good

people

and you put them in a really bad place

and the goodness of the people crumbles

against the power of the place

we as people have to recognize that with

the bad group and with the wrong group

of people

our decisions and the perception of

ourselves and the world around us shift

to fit our circumstances

i myself i’m going to further understand

my own identity

and acknowledge both the good and bad

parts of my being with that

i also have to evaluate the environments

that i place myself in

every day and understand how said

environment changes me in any way

i’m going to see people not as entities

of goodness or poorness

but as human beings who are puzzles with

scattered pieces

we should all evaluate ourselves and see

if we are who we truly are

or what everyone expects us to be

thank you

you