Stanford Prison Experiment Research Paper

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by Phillip Zimbardo, a psychologist who wanted to test the conflict that volunteers would experience when put in situations where they were not in control. This experiment took men of the same ages and put them in a “prison” setting, giving them each the label of either guard or inmate. By grouping these men together in separate categories it demonstrated a form a social control. According to James Henslin, author of the book “Sociology: A Down- To- Earth Approach,” social control can be defined as the techniques and strategies employed to prevent deviant behavior in any society. (Henslin, 2010.) After being placed in the experiment, Zimbardo observed the volunteers and was seeking to document …show more content…
After the second day, some of the prisoners started to rebel. They no longer wanted to obey the orders of the guards and comply with them. As an act of rebellion, they barricaded the doors with their beds and anything they could find in their rooms. Some asked to leave the experiment and no longer wanted to participate. When this occurred, the guards became angry and tore down the obstacles the prisoners made in their rooms. The guards then stripped the prisoners naked and ridiculed them throughout the night. Prisoner #8612 started to act “crazy” in an attempt to gain his freedom from the guards. He began to scream and cry to show the guards that this experiment was affecting him in ways that he could no longer tolerate. His behavior resulted in escalated control and dominance by the guards, and they began to harass the inmates. These were the techniques that enforced social control and made them not want to stray away from the social norms of the prison. For the rest of the experiment the relationship between the guards and the inmates changed and they started to neglect each …show more content…
He stopped it because he realized his experiment was causing all the participants to suffer, and he felt that he did not have the right to manipulate the volunteers in such a dramatic way. After this six day experiment, Zimbardo concluded that humans will react in new ways and change their behavior based on the roles that they are given or placed in. He saw first-hand the lengths that seemingly normal people would go to enforce and obey authority, even when it resulted in harming others. He also concluded that these individuals likely would not have aced the way they did if they were not placed in this