Stanford Prison Experiment Unethical

Looking back now at the Stanford Prison Experiment, it is difficult to argue that this experiment was not unethical. I am a psychology major student, and this experiment always seems to pop up whenever ethics are being discussed. Many professors have made the remark that this experiment would never be allowed in today’s world. However, I think that while the experiment itself ended up being unethical, it was too difficult to have been able to predict how it would play out.
At the same time, I believe the situation was too real, and it seems to me that the prisoners were not aware that they could leave, while this was never explicitly said to them, I think that they felt obligated to see this experiment through. That is my biggest problem with this experiment. The book mentions that there was a contract, this to me makes it even harder to believe that participants would feel free to walk away. I think that they felt like they had to finish the experiment, even though they were feeling extreme anxiety and stress. Had it been made much clearer to every participant that they could walk away at any moment, I think this experiment would not be viewed so unethically. Granted the results might not have been so informative, nor would valuable information probably attained. Thus subjects not being informed of the procedures to me is the biggest ethical …show more content…
They didn’t realize what humans are capable of when they have all that power. Furthermore, the researchers took other great deal of precautions to ensure there were no long-term effects. This is why I find it hard to blame the researchers for the unethical experiment. The main fault I see, is that prisoners should have been informed of their right to leave the experiment. I mean there were people basically crying that they wanted to leave. The anxiety and depression was obvious. However, before the experiment this was difficult to