1. Philip Zimbardo and his associates Craig Huney, Curtis Banks, and David Jaffe were interested in the psychological affects experienced by prisoners and employees of prisons. They were trying to answer the question “Does prison change people?” They did not formulate any hypotheses, but they believed that powerful situations can overcome internal behavioral tendencies, leading us to engage in behaviors that are different from our usual selves, and that situation exerts strong effects over our behavior.
2. The researches creates a “prison” in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford University to stimulate a real prison experience. The participants were 24 normal college-age men that had to agree to certain provisions, such as violations of their civil rights and minimal food. They were divided into “guards” and “prisoners.” During the “arresting” process, the prisoners were treated the same as real prisoners, and the whole procedure stimulated the humiliation, repression, and entrapment inmates experience. The “guards” worked 8 hour shifts, returning to their …show more content…
Zimbardo’s research proves to be significant in that it identified parallels between real prison and the “prison” at Stanford in the subjects of prison riots, uprisings, rebellions, kidnappings, and murders. He observed that prisons continued to be failed social experiments more than 20 years later, and noted that prison conditions worsened as a consequence of the politicization of prisons.
4. A recent application of this research is the expansion Zimbardo made of his findings on prisoner abuse to the larger concept of human evil. Zimbardo has tried to use his study to help explain how normal people may be transformed into sadistic, brutal people due to war. It also could be used to support prison reforms.
5. I learned that situation/environment can influence our behavior more than our internal behavior tendencies. Therefore, our behavior has the ability to be shaped by the things around
2. The researches creates a “prison” in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford University to stimulate a real prison experience. The participants were 24 normal college-age men that had to agree to certain provisions, such as violations of their civil rights and minimal food. They were divided into “guards” and “prisoners.” During the “arresting” process, the prisoners were treated the same as real prisoners, and the whole procedure stimulated the humiliation, repression, and entrapment inmates experience. The “guards” worked 8 hour shifts, returning to their …show more content…
Zimbardo’s research proves to be significant in that it identified parallels between real prison and the “prison” at Stanford in the subjects of prison riots, uprisings, rebellions, kidnappings, and murders. He observed that prisons continued to be failed social experiments more than 20 years later, and noted that prison conditions worsened as a consequence of the politicization of prisons.
4. A recent application of this research is the expansion Zimbardo made of his findings on prisoner abuse to the larger concept of human evil. Zimbardo has tried to use his study to help explain how normal people may be transformed into sadistic, brutal people due to war. It also could be used to support prison reforms.
5. I learned that situation/environment can influence our behavior more than our internal behavior tendencies. Therefore, our behavior has the ability to be shaped by the things around