Cloudy Judgment
In 1971, Professor Phillip Zimbardo Ph.D. from Stanford University devised an experiment to test the willingness of people to conform to social roles in a simulated environment (McLeod, S. A. 2016). There were tons of applications the research team had to sort through settling on 24 college students who were broken up into two groups. The prison guard group who had no formal training on how to work as a prison guard or utilize law enforcement tactics, and the prisoner group. The first hours of the experiment had been uneventful and eventually lead to disturbing mental and physical abuse by the prison guard group. The reason I felt that this particular experiment was unethical is the way the rights and safety of the participants were overlooked and purposely not fully informing the participants of those rights so that the experiment would not be disrupted. The prison guard group who no training used careless techniques to humiliate and dehumanize the prisoner group leaving the prisoners extremely stressed and often depressed. I think that the Professor Zimbardo used a careless approach when protecting his scientific research and subjects. …show more content…
During a correctional officers administrative training they now receive training on how a prisoner’s behavior can be altered by a guard’s temperament. Guards also receive training on empathy so that they have a better understanding of a prisoner’s behavior and can remain unbiased towards a prisoner when conflict arises. A negative and positive effect is that the experiment was also a large reason why there are ethical guidelines today. The outcome of the research although harmful to the participants at the time, it has reshaped the way we look at the prison guard and prisoner
In 1971, Professor Phillip Zimbardo Ph.D. from Stanford University devised an experiment to test the willingness of people to conform to social roles in a simulated environment (McLeod, S. A. 2016). There were tons of applications the research team had to sort through settling on 24 college students who were broken up into two groups. The prison guard group who had no formal training on how to work as a prison guard or utilize law enforcement tactics, and the prisoner group. The first hours of the experiment had been uneventful and eventually lead to disturbing mental and physical abuse by the prison guard group. The reason I felt that this particular experiment was unethical is the way the rights and safety of the participants were overlooked and purposely not fully informing the participants of those rights so that the experiment would not be disrupted. The prison guard group who no training used careless techniques to humiliate and dehumanize the prisoner group leaving the prisoners extremely stressed and often depressed. I think that the Professor Zimbardo used a careless approach when protecting his scientific research and subjects. …show more content…
During a correctional officers administrative training they now receive training on how a prisoner’s behavior can be altered by a guard’s temperament. Guards also receive training on empathy so that they have a better understanding of a prisoner’s behavior and can remain unbiased towards a prisoner when conflict arises. A negative and positive effect is that the experiment was also a large reason why there are ethical guidelines today. The outcome of the research although harmful to the participants at the time, it has reshaped the way we look at the prison guard and prisoner