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