Explain the Impact of the Stanford Prison Experiment on Psychology and Behaviour Essay Example for Free

Explain the impaction of the Stanford Prison Experiment on Psychology and Behaviour EssayThe Stanford prison essay ,led by professor Philip Zimbardo, was aimed at seeing the effect on people on becoming prisoners or prison guards. The whim was to see what happens to people when they are put in relatively evil places. Do the people themselves survive evil or is in that location no net effect? The results indicated that in fact people conciliate to their role exceptionally vigorous. It was observed that the prison guards became overly tyrannical to the level of sadism.In consequence the prisoners were seen to be under severe stress to the extent that they became crazy or depressed. 24 volunteers were selected that had no psychological problems, health issues or any past crime accounts. They were brought to a mock prison set up in the basement of the Stanford universitys psychology building where they were randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards. 3 prisoners each were given rooms that they had to get going in for 24 hours of the day and the guards were given 8 hour shifts to pass water in.The study was observed upon using cameras and microphones. They study was supposed to last for 14 days but had to be halted after 6 days due to extreme unethical practices in the prison. The Stanford prison prove showed us that human beings alter to the situation they are put in. The guards won total control over the prisoners who blindly followed orders. All of this in just 5 days of experimental conditions. Zimbardo said that the prisoners had internalised their roles and at that placefore continued to take part in the experiment on their own will.One example of this is when they introduced themselves to the priest with their serial number preferably than their real name. Another example would be of the prison consultant who took on the role of an autocratic draw of the parole board. After the experiment was over he was said to be disgusted at the psy che he had become. In essence there were two groups created among the volunteers, therefore, according to social identity theory ,people in the in-group would exhibit in-group favouritism and a sense of discrimination of the out-group.This brook explain the unanimity between the guards themselves and their authentic dislike towards the inmates. To further build on this ,the radical of the prison guards being a group may evoke the feeling of anonymity, which would allow the guards to be more free and aggressive as they could shake false responsibility for their actions. This is called deindividuation theory. It may be a cause of the violence occurred on the prisoners by the guards as there is a diffusion of responsibility. The Self-fulfilling prophecy states that when a person is given a label we often sleep together up to that expectation.In the same way ,as the volunteers were given labels, they tried to live up to that expectation and thus acted in the way they thought they should. Furthermore it can be said that the volunteers had set stereotypes on the idea of a prison guard and prisoner. It can be assumed that these stereotypes illustrated the prison guards to be strong and authoritative. It could overly be an illusionary correlation make by them through watching films or through media (which promoter that they attribute the behaviour of the prison guards to their disposition rather than situation FAE).The theory of cognitive dissonance can also be used to understand why the prisoners and guards acted this way. They had to alter their mind-set(attitudes) to match with their behaviours so that there was no tension in their self identity. The situation put the prisoners in certain set roles that they tried to live up to and thus they changed their behaviour. This experiment along with Milligrams shock experiment demonstrates the fundamental ascription error which says that there is a overestimation of dispositional factors and under-estimation of si tuational factors when we attribute.It changed the way we looked at psychology in a socio-cultural aspect. This experiment has helped us understand how good people do bad things such as the torture of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Gharib prison, which was a real life example of the same results obtained by Zimabardo. It was also used to check up on matters such as prison riots and abuse of juveniles in many prisons. Young adults are also cognize to be power hungry. Their lust for power might have changed the way they would have normally behaved. The prisoners were made powerless and thus started to behave in such a way.They became depressed ,helpless and unstable. Thus it can be said that power also affected their behaviour. In relation to gender I believe that there would not have been much difference in the experiment as people, male or female, campaign to have similar schematic processing when it comes to social perceptions of a certain group or individuals. If conducted with bu t females it is more likely that there would have been lesser violence as it has been researched that testosterone, which is much more predominating in males, is a cause of sexual arousal and aggression.Culture would not affect the behaviour as everybody involve some power in their life and if power is stolen from us we tend to become unstable. Lastly, it can be argued that all the volunteers of the experiment were college students. These students are more likely to be aggressive, as they would have higher testosterone levels compared to sometime(a) guards in regular prisons. The volunteers were mostly white males who were on average ,financially stable, which when compared to regular prisoners would not equate well as people in prisons are usually financially unstable.It goes without saying that this experiment was extremely unethical. It did harmed the volunteers twain physically and mentally as they were put under severe stress as well as physical torture. Their consent forms were not complete as it id not involve the details of the experiment. The volunteers did not cheat what they were getting themselves into , for example strip searched which is a violation itself. They were also ,without prior knowledge ,arrested.Zimbardo himself became the super-intendant and did not live by his role as a psychologist ,which should have been the case to have an unbiased study. The experiment had no controls and thus is therefore severely criticised. Therefore the validity and ethics of this experiment, relating to its method are questioned. In conclusion, the experiment was a path breaking exercise that opened our eyes to show us the vulnerability of our racetrack in terms of conformity and how we adapt to our situations especially when it comes to the fight for power.