Analysis: The Stanford Prison Experiment

This experiment went wrong and led to mental problems. These problems became so extreme that the experiment was discontinued after 6 days instead of 2 weeks. The Stanford Prison Experiment called into question the idea of Good vs Evil. The experiment showed how situational journey can cause an individual to “compromise” their beliefs. This change in behavior lead to psychological conflict among the “guards” and “prisoners.” The main psychologist that conducted this experiment’s name is Philip Zimbardo and he was one of the psychologist’s at Stanford University.
The people that took part in this experiment were all students at Stanford and they got paid $15 a day if they did the experiment. The main psychologists in this experiment interviewed the Stanford students before the experiment and asked them if they’d rather be a guard or prisoner. They didn’t get to choose but Zimbardo wanted to know why they wanted to be guard or prisoner. He made them think that they had a choice but, he flipped a coin to decide if they would be a guard or prisoner.Once the guards and prisoners were decided the guards had to go out and pick up the prisoners and give them a reason why they were being arrested just like any other normal criminal being arrested without warning. When the guards brought the prisoners back to an empty Stanford hallway where the experiment took place. When they got there the guards made the prisoners strip down and change into brown sacs and they were given numbers. They were only allowed to be referred to as their numbers. The guards were only referred to as Mr. Correctional Officer Sir and if the prisoners referred to them as anything else they would be put into the hole. The hole was a cabinet in the middle of the hallway and the prisoners would be put there if they didn’t follow the rules and they would stay in there until they learned their lesson. The rules were pretty basic rules that every prisoner had to in a real jail. During the experiment the guards had …show more content…
But the guards won’t let the prisoners tell their parents that they are being tortured and beaten. The guards had the prisoners write letters to their parents but they never shipped the letters out so none of the letters got to their parents. The guards got so mean and rude to the prisoners that they started to have mental breakdowns because they started to I believe that they were in prison. This caused The Stanford Prison Experiment to end after 6 days instead of lasting 2 weeks. This experiment affected the prisoners so much that those prisoners had to get a therapist to help them with their problem. If this experiment was done today Philip Zimbardo would be arrested for abuse because this experiment is very illegal. This experiment helped prove Philip Zimbardo’s theory could good people turn evil and the answer is yes. The power goes to your heads because in the 6 days that the guards were awful to the prisoners the next week they were all best friends again and no one mistreated anyone. When they were interviewed later they all said that they didn’t know what came over them but they had power and the