The experiment started off with the volunteers adopting their roles quickly and easily, with guards exercising control, and the prisoners being compliant. Soon, the prisoners began adopting realistic behavior where they would abandon their solidarity and seek to benefit from other inmates infringements. With the prisoners being dehumanized with pointless orders, insults, boring jobs, and physical punishment (push-ups), it was clear that the guards began to act tyrannical in their environment. On the mere second day, there was a rebellion. Prisoners ripped off their numbers and barricaded their doors to seek protection and distance to insult and mock the guards. While the prisoners were beginning to get serious, the guards on duty seeked reinforcements
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An ideal example of the emotional effect on prisoners is prisoner #8162. With less than 36 hours passing, #8162 began to suffer extreme emotional distress, sorrow, disorganized thinking, and anger. He became engulfed in the experiment and forgot that it was fake, telling other prisoners they cannot leave and then going on psychotic rages. Because of the severe effects he was suffering from, the researchers had not choice but to let him leave, making him understand that the prison was fabricated for an experiment that he volunteered for. Considering these findings, the conclusion for the Stanford Prison Experiment is that people will gladly conform to the social roles of their specific environment and take on the tendencies of their stereotyped roles (institutional power). This concluding statement supports the hypothesis that the sadistic nature developed in prison guards is strictly due to situational circumstances rather than dispositional. Furthermore, when in the same uniform as everyone else, the group setting of guards lead them to forget their identity and responsibility and conform to the group norm of being barbarous towards the …show more content…
This was a very misleading statement because it could mean anything and may lead to drastic emotional scars. Evidence supporting this is that guards were allowed to assign meaningless, menial labour to prisoners and if they did not comply, punishment was encouraged. Also, when being transitioned from the city police to the mock prison, they were blindfolded so they would be unaware. Then, they were placed in a degradation ritual where they would have all of their personal belongings and clothes stripped away from them. This would make the elected prisoners feel extremely vulnerable and uncomfortable and was not ethical, especially if they requested the actions to be ceased.
Second issue: Disregard of privacy On the day before the experiment would start, randomly assigned guards would arrive at the basement to help set up and pick uniforms, whereas the selected inmates were told to rest at home. What they were not informed of was that they would be arrested by the city police at their home and run through the entire extensive booking procedure. This was a severe disregard of personal privacy and may have been very traumatizing to some volunteers, due to them being in shock.
Third issue: Dangerous conditions and unfair delegation of
An ideal example of the emotional effect on prisoners is prisoner #8162. With less than 36 hours passing, #8162 began to suffer extreme emotional distress, sorrow, disorganized thinking, and anger. He became engulfed in the experiment and forgot that it was fake, telling other prisoners they cannot leave and then going on psychotic rages. Because of the severe effects he was suffering from, the researchers had not choice but to let him leave, making him understand that the prison was fabricated for an experiment that he volunteered for. Considering these findings, the conclusion for the Stanford Prison Experiment is that people will gladly conform to the social roles of their specific environment and take on the tendencies of their stereotyped roles (institutional power). This concluding statement supports the hypothesis that the sadistic nature developed in prison guards is strictly due to situational circumstances rather than dispositional. Furthermore, when in the same uniform as everyone else, the group setting of guards lead them to forget their identity and responsibility and conform to the group norm of being barbarous towards the …show more content…
This was a very misleading statement because it could mean anything and may lead to drastic emotional scars. Evidence supporting this is that guards were allowed to assign meaningless, menial labour to prisoners and if they did not comply, punishment was encouraged. Also, when being transitioned from the city police to the mock prison, they were blindfolded so they would be unaware. Then, they were placed in a degradation ritual where they would have all of their personal belongings and clothes stripped away from them. This would make the elected prisoners feel extremely vulnerable and uncomfortable and was not ethical, especially if they requested the actions to be ceased.
Second issue: Disregard of privacy On the day before the experiment would start, randomly assigned guards would arrive at the basement to help set up and pick uniforms, whereas the selected inmates were told to rest at home. What they were not informed of was that they would be arrested by the city police at their home and run through the entire extensive booking procedure. This was a severe disregard of personal privacy and may have been very traumatizing to some volunteers, due to them being in shock.
Third issue: Dangerous conditions and unfair delegation of