The Stanford Prison Experiment: History Of Social Psychology

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The Stanford Prison Experiment was a proposed two-week experiment that turned into a six day nightmare. “The original intent was to study whether the behavior of prisoners and guards was dispositional or situational” (McLeod, 2008). However, what they got out of the experiment was a “situation in which prisoners were withdrawing and behaving in pathological ways” and where some of the guards “were behaving sadistically” (Zimbardo). The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the most controversial studies ever conducted in the “history of social psychology” (Konnikova, 2015). The results of this experiment show the truth of how absolute power corrupts absolutely, why good people do bad things, and how it can be applied to real life situations (Dalberg-Acton).
One early Sunday morning in Palo Alto, California, a police car “swept through the town” and arrested college students as part of a mass arrest. The suspect was then taken to the Palo Alto station, formally booked, reminded of his rights, and then blindfolded. The “prisoner” was then transported to the “Stanford County Jail,” A.K.A. the basement of the psychology
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The prisoners removed their caps, ripped the numbers off their uniforms, and barricaded themselves inside their cells. The guards were frustrated, and when the morning shift arrived, they became upset at the night shift, for they felt that the night shift had been too lenient. Reinforcements were called in, and the three guards who were on standby came in and the night shift stayed in to bolster the morning shift. The guards then decided to meet force with force. They got a fire extinguisher and forced the prisoners away from the doors. The guards then broke into the cells, stripped each prisoner, took the beds out, and forced the ringleaders into solitary confinement. And thus the harassment and intimidation

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