Question

Chapter 12: Social Psychology

Read about Zimbardo's Prison Study. What can be learned from this study? What institutions should be changed (if any) and in what way? discussion

Answer 1

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University. It was a landmark psychological study to demonstrate the human response to captivity. Under Philip Zimbardo, the acting prison warden, a simulated prison environment was created to study the development of norms, the effects of roles, labels, and social expectations. The Stanford prison experiment was originally conceived to last two weeks but was called off after just six days considering the state of participant’s. It was observed that within twenty-four hours of the study’s start, the students who were playing the guards began humiliating and psychologically abusing the prisoners. Consequently, the prisoners became submissive and suffered mental breakdowns. As the experiment had gone out of control so it was called off after six days on the insistence of Christina Maslach, a former graduate student.

Philip Zimbardo's study demonstrates that it is easy for good people to turn into bad people and how this line between good and evil is permeable and vice versa.  In the Stanford Prison Experiment, the social structure demonstrates the power of statuses and roles in shaping behavior. The experiment observes that not everyone reacts in a similar manner to the common social structure and are capable of being inhumane when people take on some other identity by wearing a uniform or wearing a mask and show uncritical conformity to group norms.  A similar situation happened at the prison of Abu Gharib where prisoners were subjected to extreme atrocity.