Stanford Prison Experiment Summary

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The general topic that the article on the Stanford Prison Experiment by Craig Haney, Curtis Banks and Philip Zimbardo addresses is prison life and the specific roles that prisoners and jailers quickly undertake. The purpose of this research is to try to decipher what makes both prisoners and guards act the way they do. Some believe that violence in prison is caused by the violent nature of the prisoners, others believe that what makes prison violent is the actions of the guards and the brutal way in which they treat prisoners. The research was meant to provide more insight in how prison dynamics work and what the real cause is for the violent and brutal environment within prisons. Although there are various hypotheses like the dispositional …show more content…
The changes observed in the mock prison are very significant and important because both subjects although aware that this was all fake still acted and felt like it was real. For half of the prisoners to be willing to give up their pay just to go home shows how horrendous life in prison is and even when they knew they could leave anytime they stayed. The research done gets us closer to the root of the problem and we can conclude that the problems that arise in these institutions are not the fault of the guards or prisoners but of the effect everything has on their …show more content…
This research although not completely accurate can help solve the violence and abuse which exists in these institutions and with more studies they could find ways to make it a healthier environment and hopefully one in which individuals actually reform themselves. This was a mock prison and for this reason a lot of limitations existed which can affect the resultsIn this controlled environment, no physical or sexual abuse was allowed neither were there gangs or smuggling of arms or drugs which is another thing that could greatly affect psychological behavior within these institutions. However, there were some strengths in this study which allowed us to get a better understanding one of these strengths was the fact that none of the subjects had criminal backgrounds so none of them had been previously exposed to this sort of situation. Another strength of the study is that they conducted things like an actual prison, the prisoners remained there and the guards had shifts this allowed us to get closer to the real life

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