Philip Zimbardo's Prison Experiments

Throughout the history the question of power being corrupted has always been on display. Corruption is directly proportionate to greed of having absolute control over one’s subordinates. The quotation above demonstrates the idea which states that each individual who gains power and sees a potentiality to make it absolute, is highly likely going to be corrupted by it.
Evidence for in support of this position, can be found in various examples from the history. Firstly I would like to assess the behavior of the Ancient Rome’s emperors. Many of them aside of being competent, gifted administrators were models of paranoid, erratic tyrants. They all suffered from the illusion of having infinite control over the nation. The power alluded that each …show more content…
I see this tendency in Zimbardo’s prison experiments. The police officers are almost always the group of people who represent just behavior and morality. In this psychological study Philip Zimbardo used low ranked officers to be guards in the created prison. Once they got the power to rule over a great number of people, the prisoners, officers who earlier were righteous in their professions began to act inequitable. They realized how much that they have the possibility to use all kind of ways to make the prisoners to listen to them, they could use all unjust kinds of actions without causing themselves any troubles for doing so. It somewhat shows that human behavior is conditioned by the rules that the society gives . People who act justly only do it only because, there are rules that they refer to while they make decisions. Without obeying certain rules, the society would thought of them as of unjust, but the second they can do something “invisibly” they will do it. The same happened in “The ring of Gages”, when the ring turned the person invisible he began use the given power, to have it even more. He gained the absolute power by being corrupted by the strength of the …show more content…
On the other hand I think that it is not the power that is the main problem, but the morality of people, which uses every chance, even the unjust one to gain power and control over others. In order to end the corruptive influence that power has on us we should change the way we think of the world and the real importance and meaning of power. There also should be stated rules that would prevent the greed of power from increasing, and people from thinking that power is something that makes them