The Stanford Prison Experiment
ale3005 October 12th, 2007
In this research, Philip G. Zimbardo, makes an experiment known as the Stanford Prison experiment where he raises troubling questions about the ability of individuals to resists authoritarian or obedient roles, if the social setting requires these roles. Zimbardo planned to study the process by which prisoners and guards become compliant and authoritarian by recreating a “jail environment” where a group of college students had to act as prisoners and guards respectively. It is interesting to see how these young and educated individuals who acted as guards could turn into authoritarian and sadist men that would exert too much power over the prisoners putting them in humiliating and cruel situations. On the other hand, prisoners became depressed and a sense of hopelessness invade them as the cruelties against them continue, some of them had to be taken out of the mock prison due to emotional damage. It is really amazing and at the same time freighting to see how people can change and become corrupt in such a short amount of time, when power is given to them, and how surroundings can shape a person’s identity and personality.
