Zimbardo's Prison Study

A detailed Summary of Zimbardo's Prison Study

Craig Haney, Curtis Banks, and Philip Zimbardio are all psychologists that had an idea or hypothesis about the conditions of the penile systems and how it had dehumanizing effects on the prisoners. A great Russian novelist named Dostoevsky wrote about the years that he spent in a Siberian prison and the conditions and the actions he encountered. In his book, he said, "... if a man could survive the horrors of prison life he must surely be a 'creature who could withstand anything'." Keeping this in mind, the three psychologists created an experiment that would make it easier for them to observe behavior as well as emotional, attitudinal and cognitive reactions that occurred in prison. Instead of going to a prison for observation they created a "mock" prison like environment witch included guards and prisoners. Their goal being to find the reason for the conditions, whether they are the actions of the guards, or both combined. If one was to blame the guards, they could say it!

was because they were sadistic, uneducated, and insensitive. It is their "mentality" that brings in the negative traits and creates the situations. If one wanted to blame it on the prisoners, they could say that it expected from the inmates because of

Another change that could be made, however, was to make a bigger control group. Having more people involved could have changed to outcome. Something else that could have changed the outcome was to try the experiment with women. Even thought women are more sensitive, I think it would be interesting to see the results of the experiment.

As an outside party, reading about the experiment, I don't think that that there were any major problems with the procedure and the results. However, I do feel that it was a good idea to call it off early. To me, it showed that Haney, Banks, and Zimardo knew that maybe things were getting out of control and that it could cause big problems.

Since the grads believed that the experiment was only for meant for the prisoners, the psychologists took this into consideration. That is why they intentionally had given only minimal guidelines to reflect their genuine reactions to the prison situation.

When giving out the instructions to the "guards", they had certain limits to implement the procedures when entering the prison setting and the custodial retention of the "prisoners". The inmates or "prisoners" voluntarily admitted themselves to the conditions of the institution where they lived and dealt with the stress and challenges. All behaviors was observed and then analyzed. This was done through videos, audio-tapes, direct observation when there was transactions between and within the groups, and individual questionnaires, mood inventories, personality tests, guard reports, and post experimental interviews.

The inmates stayed in the mock-prison 24 hours a day for the time of the study. There were three prisoners assigned to each of the tree cells, while the others were on stand-by at home. The guards worked three man shifts for eight hour per day, remaining at the "prison" for the extent of their work and then returned tot heir usual everyday lives.

As far as uniforms went, the guards were dressed in khaki shirts and pants, had a whistle, a wooden baton, and reflecting eyeglasses to avoid eye contact. The prisoners wore a loose-fitting smock with an identification number on the front and back, no under clothes, a light chain and lock around one ankle, rubber sandals, and a nylon stocking cap.

When reading about the experiment in the beginning, I felt that it wasn't going to work. I figured that since they were recruiting college boys, their experiment was going to be compromised. College boys tend to be still immature and screw around a lot. That is what I expected from them. I didn't think they would actually take it seriously. I never expected that it would go as far as it did. I found it amazing how affected everyone was. To have a grown, well almost totally grown, man crying and begging to leave shows that it had to be terrible to withstand. I do feel that the experiment was ethically done and just became out of hand at times. If they thought about ding this again, they should take into consideration the torture the inmates went throug

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Philip Zimbardio, Warden Superintendent, Banks Zimardo, Stanford University's, subjects chosen, Elliot Ed, results experiment, Animal YorkWorth, passive rarely instigated, rarely instigated control, psychologists created, experiment people, prison life, play role, guards prisoners, conditions actions, $15 day, reading experiment,

Approximate Word count = 2041
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Science