The Stanford prison experiment was an experiment held between August 14th and went all the way up until August 20th. In this experiment, a psychology professor named Philip Zimbardo attempts to form a model prison where he would select participants to either be guards or prisoners. The participants were interviewed, and the ones chosen were randomly assigned their roles of being either prisoners, or guards. The model prison was created in the basement of Stanford University, and it was meant to act as a replica to a real prison. This experiment was meant to show the participants what it would really feel like to live in a prison. The goal of this experiment was to see how the participants would act, and fulfill their given roles. As we learned
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They used the authority they had to harass, and even physically injure the prisoners. They used a firehose to move the prisoners away from their cell when they were blocking it. They became so engaged that they even had the prisoners “hump” each other at the end just to prove their authority. They treated the prisoners like slaves and they would assault them anytime they did not abide by their rules. Some of the guards however, were not as engaged. One of the guards who seemed younger than the others seemed to be disgusted by the way the guards were treating the prisoners. Towards the end, he could not even watch as his fellow guards were forcing one of the inmates to curse. This is another example of conformity. This young guard did not want to be the odd one out so he accepted the actions and beliefs of the other guards. Another concept that can be seen here is deindividuation. Deindividuation can be seen as the loss of self- awareness occurring in group situations. This can be seen by both the prisoners and the guards. The prisoners were all one group and they lost their individuality. They were all acting the same and doing the same things as a group and they did not give it much thought. The guards also lost their individuality. The young guard did not have a say in what the others did, but rather followed them and did what they were doing. This in part explains why the guards who were not enjoying their roles, did
They used the authority they had to harass, and even physically injure the prisoners. They used a firehose to move the prisoners away from their cell when they were blocking it. They became so engaged that they even had the prisoners “hump” each other at the end just to prove their authority. They treated the prisoners like slaves and they would assault them anytime they did not abide by their rules. Some of the guards however, were not as engaged. One of the guards who seemed younger than the others seemed to be disgusted by the way the guards were treating the prisoners. Towards the end, he could not even watch as his fellow guards were forcing one of the inmates to curse. This is another example of conformity. This young guard did not want to be the odd one out so he accepted the actions and beliefs of the other guards. Another concept that can be seen here is deindividuation. Deindividuation can be seen as the loss of self- awareness occurring in group situations. This can be seen by both the prisoners and the guards. The prisoners were all one group and they lost their individuality. They were all acting the same and doing the same things as a group and they did not give it much thought. The guards also lost their individuality. The young guard did not have a say in what the others did, but rather followed them and did what they were doing. This in part explains why the guards who were not enjoying their roles, did