Zimbardo Injustices In Prisons

McLeod (2016) stated that prisoners arrived in their small cells with bare walls, barred doors and windows blindfolded, and then stripped naked, dispossessed of their personal possessions, given prison clothes comprised of a smock with their number written on it, no underclothes, a tight nylon cap and beddings, and were called only by their prisoner numbers. This process referred to as the deindividuation or loss of individuality, was to make the prisoners feel anonymous as the prisoners can only be called by their prison number, refer to themselves and others by their respective prison numbers and had locked chains around their ankle.
For the prison guards, they were dressed in identical khaki uniforms, carried a whistle around their neck, held billy clubs borrowed from the police, wore special sunglasses to make eye contact with the prisoners impossible and were instructed to do all necessary to maintain law and order, and command the respect of prisoners without any recourse to physical violence. However shortly after the commencement of the experiment, both the prison guards and prisoners had settled into their new roles and the guards very quickly afterwards were observed harassing and tormenting the prisoners and behaving in a brutal and sadistic manner.
As for the prisoners, McLeod (2016) reported that they adapted to the role, by adopting …show more content…
(2008, p.282) contended that the Zimbardo experiment emphasize that it is the situation in which people find themselves and not their personal trait that largely determine their behaviour. They added that Zimbardo (2007 as cited in Baron et al. 2008, p.282) suggested that it is the tendency to yield to situational pressures, including conformity pressures that is responsible for much of the evil behaviour exhibited by the prison guards in the experiment and that people readily conform to the social role which they are expected to play, especially if they are stereotyped roles like those of prison