Stanford Prison Experiment due 11/17 @ midnight

What interested you, What surprised you, What did you learn

I already knew about the Stanford Prison Experiment before I reviewed the website. I heard about it in several classes during my past semesters. What I did not know where many details of the experiment, which were interesting to me.
The experiment took place in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University. It is an experiment about the impact of roles of guards and prisoners. As it is explained in the beginning of the slide show: “In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress.” 24 college students,only males, were chosen to be part of the experiment. Actually more than 70 volunteers after newspaper announcement, however only the 24 were considered to be part after diagnostic interview and personality testing. They all got picked up by a real policeman in a real police car from home after answering an add in a newspaper. They got arrested on the street and brought to a real police station where they were put into holding cells, blindfolded. In the beginning there were no differences between assigned guards and assigned prisoners!
The experiment took place in the basement of Stanford's Psychology Department. They had two cells, a yard, and a solitary confinement. The rooms had no windows or clocks in order to avoid sensory stimulation. Guards were to wear sunglasses during the experiment. Prisoners were wearing dresses without underwear, chains on one ankle, and had to cover the hair with a nylon stocking. Names were replaced by ID numbers. “Each prisoner was systematically searched and stripped naked. He was then deloused with a spray, to convey our belief that he may have germs or lice.”, as Zimbardo explains the course of events in the experiment. This made me think if this is really how imprisonment works. Psychological effects on those man must be big. They get taken away their dignity and self-esteem and taken their identity through this procedure. The humiliation might break someones will or belief in himself. Guards were given no specific training. Only 3 guards and 6 prisoners were in the experiment at a time, the others were on call. In the beginning guards and prisoners were not really in their roles. Counts were made several times through day and night to exercise the guard's power over the prisoners. A rebellion broke out on the second day of the experiment. First the rebellion was fought with physical punishments. To break the solidarity among the prisoners and to avoid further rebellions the guards decided to come up with the idea of a “privilege cell”. Prisoners who behaved well had more rights then those who didn't. To break alliances the guards later swapped prisoners from the privileged cell and the other cell. This led to confusion and mistrust among the prisoners. After this guards used their power to control the prisoners and used their powers over them bounteous. Only 36 hours after the experiment started the first prisoner began showing psychological suffering.
From the experiment I learned that there are three types of guards: fair guards, good-guy guards, and hostile guards. I also learned that nothing in the personality testing predicted the (hostile) behavior of the guards. This was also very surprising for me. We are not able to make serious prediction about someone's behavior in a certain situation like that. Psychology tries to predict human behavior, however they were not able to do it for the experiment. Another fact I learned was that consultants were brought in such as an ex-prisoner.
The experiment was supposed to be a functional simulation of a prison - a simulation of the humiliation process to get results that are transmissible to real life effects. Prisoners as well as guards were studied.
Surprising was the obedience that was shown by the prisoners. I did not expect that. I thought that the behavior would be a lot more rebellious than described.
Also, it seems as if the story you are reading goes on over several weeks and not just six days. This was very surprising.
To me it seems as if evil triumphs humanity in a case like this. It is unbelievable that the results are so drastic, and as we can see in the case of Abu Ghraib are very real and not just results of a psychological experiment. Since these outcomes are known, something should be done to prevent such terrible role behavior. It seems as if there is no good tool to asses if someone will exploit their power over other people or not.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted in Palo Alto, California in 1971. It was a study of the psychological effects of prison life that was supposed to last two weeks but was ended after only 6 days because of the physical and psychological toll it was taking on the college students involved. Not only was this experiment damaging for the “prisoners” but it also showed that there was a huge impact on the “guards” as well. There were originally 9 prisoners and 9 guards, and the experiment followed legal guidelines from the very beginning. Prisoners were arrested, booked, and sent to prison. It started out as a simple experiment but before long, the guards and prisoners began to take their role so seriously that the experiment needed to be stopped.

What was really surprising to me was how quickly the experiment began to take an emotional toll on the prisoners. According to the website, less than 36 hours into the experiment, one of the prisoners began suffering very badly emotionally. Prisoner #8612 began to cry uncontrollably and have intense rage. The experimenters at this point were also into their role and first assumed that this prisoner was trying to trick them into releasing him because he didn’t want to be a part of the experiment. The experimenters had a prison consultant, who had served time in real prison, interview Prisoner #8612. The consultant chided the prisoner for being weak and told him what kind of abuse he could expect if he were in San Quentin Prison. The prisoner was given an offer to become an informant in exchange for no more harassment. During the next “count”, Prisoner #8612 told the other prisoners that they were not allowed to quit, which made the other prisoners begin to feel that they were really being imprisoned. After that, Prisoner #8612 began to act “crazy” by screaming, cursing, and going into an out of control rage. This was when the experimenters realized that he was actually suffering and they decided they had to release him.

Another thing that surprised me was that about 50 psychologists and others came to observe the experiment and only one of them said anything about it being morally wrong. Christina Maslach, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley came to observe. When she saw the prisoners lined up with bags over their heads, their legs chained, and guards shouting at them while herding them to the toilet, she got upset and refused to observe. She made it evident that human beings were suffering, not prisoners and not experimental subjects or paid volunteers. It was at this point that Professor Zimbardo agreed that they had gone too far and the experiment needed to end.

The Stanford Prison Experiment had major psychological effects on both the prisoners and the guards. After the experiment was over, it was clear that the environment that these students were put in had an impact on their behavior. Each man in the experiment was chosen out of a pool of about 70 volunteers. The applicants were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse. After weeding out volunteers and settling on the 24 participants, it could be said that these men were “normal” people. This experiment showed that normal people put in a psychologically unhealthy environment like a prison or jail will become infected by their exposure to the situation. Even Professor Zimbardo got too serious with his role as the prison administrator. He had been transformed by his role and didn’t end the study sooner because of conflict with his dual roles as principal investigator and as the prison administrator.

Wow! I thought I knew all about this experiment. However, I learned quite a few things from visiting this website. I had not known that prisoners were actually arrested from their homes, and became participants by answering an ad in the paper. I found it interesting that they eliminated people from the experiment that presented psychological issues during their pre interviews and personality tests. Especially since they had not assumed that the experiment would take the direction that it did. It was probably a good thing that they were not included though. I hadn’t heard that the cells they stayed in were bugged so that the researchers could listen to the prisoner’s discussions. Some of the ways in which they humiliated the prisoners was news to me too. That they had to get naked in front of other people shocked me! Also, that they wore smocks and chains on their ankles.

There are many interesting aspects to this study. I found it interesting that they bugged the cells, as I mentioned before. I find this interesting because it made me wonder if they do that in real prisons. It is obviously a violation of some type of human rights, but law enforcement bugs criminals they are trying to put away, so why wouldn’t they be able to do it in the confines of the prison, where they could also gain useful information into prisoner treatment, psychosis, communications, networks, crimes, etc.? I found it incredibly interesting that the guards were given no instructions as to what to do, how to behave, how to respond in certain situations. I also found it interesting that physical exertion was used as a form of punishment, and its severity escalated if the guards felt humiliated by the prisoners. I found it interesting and funny that one of the participants that was assigned as a prisoner misconceived what the experiment was about and planned on “exposing” it. When visitors were expected, the manipulation of the environment and mood was interesting. They tried to up the positive affect of the prisoners by treating them different (in a better way). When the priest visited and acted as if it was real, it blurred the lines between reality and role-play, which was also fascinating.

Many things were shocking, but what I found the most shocking was that only one person who visited the faux prison during the experiment objected to it and pointed out the morality of the situation. Not the parents, priest, lawyer pointed these things out. They may have raised concerns for the well-being of the prisoners, but in a way, they were playing their part too, which in a way also dehumanized the participants into prisoners. Another shocking aspect of this experiment was the naked part. I wonder if that was included in the information given before consent to the study. How quickly the experiment changed, in relation to the guards and prisoners behaviors is astonishing. Just between day 1 and 2 there was a difference. Within 6 days, people were overcome with the entitlement of power and the demoralization and dehumanizing aspects of the experiment.

The many tactics used to humiliate and break down the spirits of the prisoners were done in a psychological way. If only physical punishment had been administers and normal food, activity, communication, schedules, and interactions had occurred, there would not have been such a significant altercation in the psychological well-being of the prisoners. However, the guards used many psychological abuse strategies that further humiliated, dehumanized and reduced self-image, esteem, and concepts. By cutting the prisoners off from their outside world, they did these things. By making them be naked in the presence of others they emasculated the prisoners. They oppressed any sense of self by reducing the prisoners to number, not names. The psychological stress warranted by the guards created paranoia. Our self-esteem relates to how we are treated and viewed by others. With prisoner #819, who could hear chants degrading him by his fellow prisoners, instead of being set free wanted to go back to prove that he was bad and to help his prison mates. This showed that he felt he had no power. He had become the role he was playing and had lost sight of who he was and that he was participating in an experiment.

There were a few things that surprised me about the experiment…..first I find it fairly unethical to let students participate in such an experiment, if you want to study something like this, why wouldn’t you observe life in a “real” prison? After some consideration, and some more reading on the experiment itself, I understand what why it was done but, I personally still see it as somewhat unethical. The second thing that surprised me was the how involved the participants became engulfed in their roles. They actually thought that they were what their role explained them to be. For some reason I don’t understand how someone can be so unconscious to what reality really is. Following is a synopsis of the experiment as well as how it is related or relating to psychology:
The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or a prison guard. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty-four undergraduates were selected out of 70 to play the roles of both guards and prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Those selected were chosen for their lack of psychological issues, crime history, and medical disabilities, in order to obtain a representative sample. Roles were assigned based on a coin toss.
Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. Some of the guards were judged to have showed sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be removed from the experiment early. After a graduate student (prisoner #819) broke down from the inhumane conditions in the prison, and realizing that he had been allowing unethical acts to be performed under his direct supervision, Zimbardo came to the conclusion that both the prisoners and the guards had become absorbed in their roles and ended the experiment after six days.
The experiment was set out to study the influence of social roles in human behavior. In our daily lives we are expected to fulfill the social expectations of our “roles”, our roles will have different expectations depending on the situations we are faced with. The psychologists designed an experiment to find out how much we are truly influenced by the social expectations of different roles, in this case the roles of guards and prisoners. They set out to study behavior of people who are faced with a bad situation; it studied the psychology of human aggression.

Although I have seen this many times in several classes I feel that this is the first time that I have a real understanding on what occurred and why this has contributed greatly to the understanding of why people act a certain way in a particular situation. The belief that good people can do “evil” things is even more prevalent in my mind following what I have learned.
The Stanford Prison Experiment was an experiment that was done to see what effects does a situation have a people of normal intelligence and no psychological problems. This was done by putting an ad in the paper for college students for an experiment about prison life. There was a pretty large response and after doing testing to check for any mental or physical limitations of people and from the original group 24 students were selected and would be getting paid 15 dollars per day. They were randomly assigned through a flip of the coin for who would be in which group, prisoner or guard. At the beginning it started with 9 prisoners and 9 guards, remaining volunteers were to be used as backup for the position they were assigned to.
This began with a consultation with an ex-convict who spent time in prison. Once the prison was assembled to resemble a real prison, they had arrested the original 9 students who were prisoners and took them to the local jail where they were booked accordingly. After they were booked I was shocked at what measures they went to in order to create emotional distress that is similar to what happens when people go to prison. In order to do this they had the men wear smocks and chains around their ankle with a lock they had to wear at all times; the purpose was to encourage the internal feeling of humiliation and emasculate those involved. The worked so well that some of the men actually immediately had a change in behavior they characterized as being more womanly while the chain was to be a constant reminder that they were in prison and the state of oppression.
It also surprised me at which length the experimenters went to portray the state of oppression. I say this because they also had the prisoners wear stockings over their head to simulate having their head shaved as many prisons do among those who are being admitted into the institution. They also were required to only use the id numbers that were given to them instead of any names. This was done to help take away and minimize individualism. It was only the prisoners they were looking at for information but also the guards.
The students who were guards had no training going into the experiment. They were left to their own devices to make rules and regulations on how they could maintain law and order within the prison. Not only were they to make their own way they were told their “job” would be dangerous and unpredictable just as a guard working a real prison knows and understands taking the job. The guards quickly found out just how powerful their position was, starting with counts and used push-ups as a form of punishment. They mentioned that this seemed really juvenile however it is not the first time because it was recorded this was a form of punishment and torture during the Nazi occupation.
It seemed that the guards looked for other options that were physical towards the inmates but instead psychological, in hopes to break the inmates into a controllable group. These psychological tactics that they used included bathroom privileges and allowing inmates certain privileges. This was done to help break solidarity amongst the inmates however it had alternative motives as well. The alternative to what this does is it creates aggression between inmates and thus takes away from the animosity towards the guards. This I was really shocked to know was a real tactic that is used amongst prisons as a way to take focus off the guards.
While it was just an experiment many people had forgot. The best example is the fact that one of the students involved who was a prisoner was a self-proclaimed radical with an agenda; even he forgot the real purpose of what he was doing. This sense of forgetting that they were doing an experiment seemed to forget that they were the researcher and not the prison administrator. They used a good example when a colleague noticed this situation and asked what the independent variable was and the researchers where more worried about a plot to escape versus what the real goal was. This continued to blur the line for everyone involved.
Just how blurred these lines got is almost scary especially when you want to think the best of people. I say this because when the rumored escape didn’t occur the guards escalated their harassment of the prisoners. This continued when a priest came to the prison and talked with the inmates. Although he was a real priest his portrayal as directed made him seem like a movie character which just created more confusion of what reality is versus what the experiment was doing. The biggest surprise occurred when they said the prisoners named a guard “John Wayne” which was similar to accounts of prisoners within concentration camps when they referred to the most aggressive Nazi solider “Tom Mix” both refer to their generational cowboy.
This seemed to hit a head when a prisoner refused to leave because he felt as though he had to prove to other prisoners and he was not bad. However, it was not until the researcher explained that it was just an experiment that the man agreed to leave. It just amazes me that people of normal intelligence and mental states can possibly become so engrossed in their roles. Even more so that part of the reason they ended the experiment was because the treatment of the inmates was escalating at night when guards assumed the researchers weren’t watching or that the experiment was off. Because of this continued escalation with both inmates and guards this experiment was called off after six days instead of running the entire two weeks as originally wanted.

One thing that was very interesting to me was the arrivals section in the slide tour. The part that caught my attention was the slide that talked about the shaving of the men’s hair. They were forced to have their head shaved upon arriving and to then wear a stocking cap. The reasoning behind this was to minimize the individuality of the person. This alone is cruel and it is not surprising how dramatic the results could be. To add on to that, they didn’t even get to be called by their own name, but instead had an identification number. This eliminates any uniqueness that these men might have which can take a large toll on a person’s emotions. Another thing that interested me was that the prisoners rebelled on the second night. I would think they would maybe still be in a state of shock, but at the same time I can understand why they would want to rebel if they thought they were innocent. After the rebellion when the guards broke into the cells of the prisoners, they began to strip them naked, removed their beds and harassed them. The leaders of the rebellion were then sent into solitary confinement. This is not necessarily shocking to me but sparks interest. I don’t know how I feel about the torturing of prison. I think that it is inhumane and cruel, but at the same time depending on the crime, some people need punishment. Overall, I do not agree with what these guards did especially considering they weren’t read prison guards. To be able to torture a person like that and have not have a guilty conscious makes no sense to me. So I was happy when they switched to psychological tactics instead of physical ones. By giving the less involved prisoners their garments, bed, and good food acted as an incentive to behave well. The most shocking part of this was when the guards switched it up and put the bad prisoners in good cells and the good prisoners in the bad cells. This of course caused confusion among the prisoners leaving them not the trust one another. I thought it was somewhat smart, but also kind of mean how guards have actually admitted to pitting prisoners against each other to break up certain groups. Something else that I found interesting was how calm the parents were with the experiment. I would think being a parent and coming in finding your child depressed and frantic would be a hard thing to accept. The cool thing was that they played a psychological experiment on the parents by making them think their son was ‘strong’ enough to make it through this, as if it were some kind of competition. It was neat to see how even the researches fell into their roles when trying to prevent the break in. Zimbardo said that he forgot he was researcher and became so involved in his position as the superintendent of the jail. This shows that everyone was involved, makes sense considering the psychological circumstances. The difference between role playing and reality was very hard to see by the end of the experiment. In conclusion the man conformed and their sense of reality shifted, it was as if they truly believe they were in prison. The prisoners were powerless and disintegrated and the guards had total control. Both were behaving psychotically whether it be the prisoners withdrawing or the guards being sadistic-like. The experiment ended in 6 days when it was supposed to last 2 weeks. After the men were released later on, one admitted to feeling like his identity was lost, where another one felt so much hatred towards his experience in Ohio that he felt the passion to kill those who had tortured him, which in a way, I cannot blame him.

What I learned from this experiment is that people’s emotions and feelings can truly be altered by a dramatic event occurring. These men were suddenly taken out of their normal lives and thrown in prison to be tortured for no apparent reason. If I was in that position I have no idea how I would react, but I do know for certain that I would not be the same coming out of an experience like that. Psychology relates hugely because that it what the experiment was supposed to show, the psychological stress and changes people endure during an intense situation.

What interested me the most is how in this experiment that the total role reversal for both sides, brought them some reality from a point of view that is often stereotyped and down played. This experiment alone shows you that when put in either situation things are hard and harsh as they seem. For example, these students came into this experiment as equals but through separation their attitudes demeanor thoughts and actions became totally different and out of the ordinary. The guards had hostility and felt a certain kind of way about the prisoners. The prisoners felt a certain stage of paranoia and uneasy state of mind. When the police officers came to their homes and read them their Miranda rights and their neighbors and onlookers had opinions really made them take this experiment seriously if they weren’t before.
What surprised me is the mock prison that they made and how solitary was simulated, and also the doors they removed to make bars with numbers on them and the way they gave an almost simulated prison scene. Another thing that surprised me was that they blind folded the participants and sat them in a holding cell until it was time to be transferred to the make shift prison.
What i've learned is something that I partially already known which is that if someone is put in the position of power, they will abuse it, and not because they want to but because they cant help it. I have experienced it all so there isn’t anything that really surprises me or throws me for a loop because I done witnessed the worst of the worst.
Psychology has a great deal to do with how you relate to being in a position where you are powerless and have know control over your well being. Also you have to be mentally tough to make it through such harsh accommodations because if you are not strong willed you will become a victim. When you put good people in an evil place bad things happen to them. Good people that get put in situations like crooks with bad attitudes, connivers, thieves, and murderers, and people who pray on the weak you could either become the prey or the prayed on and you don’t want to be the prayed on. Its very easy to take control over the weak minded individuals that make it easy for schemers to fill them out.
Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? I believe that its 50/50 because there are some people that mean good but not always the outcome.

I have seen this study various times and it never gets old and is always interesting to watch. The main idea of this experiment is to learn about the psychological effects on prisoners as well as prison staff. The local newspaper had set out an ad for volunteers to come to the simulated prison. More than 70 applicants had answered to the newspaper. They were given psychological assessments as well as tested for medical disabilities and history of drug abuse. 24 college students were allowed from the U.S and Canada. They were to be paid $15 per day by participating in this study. The people hired for the experiment were all male and healthy of average build and intelligent.

Once the experiment began, the boys were split into two groups, prisoners and guards. It is important to remember that at the beginning of this experiment these boys were equal in all aspects. This prison experiment was aided by the help of a former prisoner who had served 17 years behind bars. This former prisoner gave insight as to how a prison was run and importantly, what it felt like to be behind bars.

The prison was constructed in the basement of Stanford's Psychology Department. This was done by constructing boarding at each end of the corridor. The prisoners were allowed to go outside. This area was known as "The Yard". When prisoners wanted to go to the bathroom, they were required to be blindfolded so that they would not know the way out of the prison. There were video recordings hidden throughout the prison. The prison also interestingly had "the hole" as solitary confinement to punish the prisoners that had acted up. There were intercoms and no clocks or any way that the prisoners could tell time.

The prisoners who were blindfolded from their arrests were now ready to enter the prison. When they first arrived they were greeted by the Warden and were placed and classified based off of the seriousness of their offense. This experiment was so real that the new prisoners were then stripped naked and sprayed in order to be deloused. A degradation procedure then took place to humiliate the new prisoners.

The prisoners were then issued uniforms and rubber shoes. On the back of these uniforms were ID numbers which were intended to make the prisoners feel like they had no identity. The guards were not given any boundaries and were told to do what they felt was necessary to maintain peace. The prisoners would be harassed and waken up at odd times of the night and morning. Rebellions in the prison of the prisoners did break out early into the experiment. Overall, the psychological stress on the prisoners transformed them into thinking that they really were indeed prisoners. The guards learned from those around them that their positions were intensified in this experiment and at times took this behavior too far. Everyone psychologically was morphed into someone else.

What surprised me the most about this experiment is that a riot broke out among the inmates on the second day of the experiment. I feel that by the second day things had not escalated to the worst point that would have been witnessed before the end of the experiment.

What interested me the most is how real the experiment was. The arrest process, degradation, delousing, "the hole", and verbal abuse is what made this experiment good for testing the psychological factors or a prison. I learned that it is very easy to conform to the environment around you when put under stress, or even given power.

Psychology plays a huge role in the Stanford Prison Experiment. You could say that social learning theory plays a role. One guard could not have automatically acted inhumane; it would have been influence from the other guards as well. Psychological abuse was a key tool used in this experiment. This is used to dehumanize the prisoners so that they are broken down and molded to become blank slates. Just a number, not associated with a name. It clearly shows in this experiment that when you put good in an evil place, evil will surely triumph over good.

I have heard of and studied the Stanford Prison experiment in other psychology classes and so I am somewhat familiar aspects of this particular case study. However this particular site had a much more in-depth view of the behind the scenes activity and the set-up of this psychological experiment. There are quite of few aspects of this experiment that I and the rest of the world find interesting and unusual.
The primary characteristic of the experiment that is generally most focused upon is the rapid onset of psychological issues that both the students who were selected as prisoners as well as the students who were selected as prison guards. The guards, who were previously thought to be average college males , developed sadistic and tortuous behavior patterns after only six days in their position. The prisoners became obedient, depressed, and dejected to the point of severity that the experiment had to be terminated.
The experiment was carefully designed and intricately created to imitate a true prison. The guards were placed in uniforms and were asked to wear the same sunglasses that the guards wore in the 1971 Attica prison riot. The subjects were taken from their homes by police officers in real police cars and were processed and booked just as someone who was actually being arrested would. The experimenter went to great lengths to create a near perfect imitation of the real experience of someone in prison.
Something that I did learn from this power point presentation of the prison experiment was that the students that had been selected as guards had undergone fairly rigorous psychological testing without showing any outward signs of violent or sadistic tendencies. I was also surprised to learn that a large number of psychologists came to observe the results of the experiment and even more shockingly, only one of the fifty observers made any type of statement regarding the possible unethical or immoral use of this type of experiment. This entire experiment revolves around different psychological principles. Ranging from the psychological theories that were being tested by this experiment, to the psychological tactics used by the guards to subjugate the prisoners as well as placate the families who protested being prevented from spending time with their imprisoned family member. This experiment is a prime example of how powerful of an impact the use of psychology can have. Even when used simplistically by a lay person.

I have heard about the Stanford prison experiment before in a prior class. This study was to show the role that prisons had on individuals who are in them as well as those who work there. The main focus is to measure the emotional trouble that is caused by the adverse affects and humiliation that prisoners are put through. The guards also are studied to determine the psychological affects of power over people have on their lives and work.

I think that the most interesting part that I read about was the things that the guards actually put the prisoners through. The guards would routinely make the prisoners strip down and search them for contraband. The guards also deloused the prisoners for belief that they had dieses or lice. The prisons where put through more humiliation by taking away their individuality by making all of the prisoners wear prison uniforms with no underwear. The uniforms were plain but had different identification numbers on the front and back according to the number given to them. The id number took away the prisoners sense of identity, it made them feel anonymous in the world. I found this very interesting the amount of which the prisoners where experience humiliation. The things that they put the prisoners through in the mock prison where somewhat different from what actual prisoners go through in prisons.

The thing that surprised me the most was the rebellion that took place among the prisoners against the guards. The rebellion undermined the guards authority and made them very frustrated. I am surprised that the guards lost control of the prisoners in such a short time. The amount of force that was used by the guard to stop the rebellion was very harsh. The guards used fire extinguishers to force the prisoners away from the prison doors, and then forced the prisoners to strip naked. They then forced the rebellion leaders to solitary confinement as well as verbally intimidating the others. The humiliation and treatment broke down the prisoners which was very damaging to their psyche. The psychological effects on the prisoners pushed them to the breaking point where they would rebel against the guards.

The prisoners where then given a visiting day when they could speak with a priest. All of the prisoners except one choose to speak with the prisoner. The priest talked with all of them and discussed what how they could get out of prison. The prisoner who choose not to speak with the priest wanted to speak with a doctor because he was sick. The prisoner was moved to a different room, as the prisoner was moved the guards had the other prisoners chant humiliating things at the other prisoner. The prisoner broke down hysterically and cried. This shows the amount of emotional trauma caused by the hazing of the prisoner by the guards and the conditions under which they where forced to live in.

The psychological effects of the experiment showed in great depth to what prisoners are forced to go through while in prison. The prisoners are taken out of their element and pushed into a world of rules and regulations that caused them great trauma. The prisoners are not the only ones put under psychological stress. The guards have stress from the prisoners undermining their authority. This study gave great insight into the psychological issued that both prisoners and guards have to deal with while in the correctional system.

Zimbardos famous prison experiment started out as an innocent idea to see the effects of prison life on the prisoners and the guards. The plan was to try and recreate a real life situation of prison and study it for two weeks. Things took a turn for the worst not long after the experiment had started. The experiment was abruptly ended six days into the investigation to prevent further psychological damage to the volunteer prisoners and the prison guards. As Zimbardo himself said the guards did run with their power and became sadistic and the prisoners became very depressed.

One thing I learned is that the volunteers were students and they signed up quite a while before the experiment took place. Each volunteer had simply answered an ad that was asking for male college students to help out. They were then arrested and that’s when the experiment started and the volunteer weren’t sure of what was going on. The participant was then taken to a holding center and then was randomly placed into a role as a prisoner or a guard. The participants were taken to a mock prison to begin the experiment on prison life. Another thing I did not know was that the prison was in the basement of the Stanford psych department building. The doors were actual steel bar doors and they had an area for solitary confinement. I have read the story and watched the clip about what happened and what took place, but I didn’t know this area of the story.

The most interesting or surprising thing to me was how fast the experiment was shut down. It’s hard to believe that six days into an experiment it must be shut down. That’s not even a full week and these students were coming down with serious mental issues. I would have to say that has to be an amazing job of designing this prison and by having the right people in the positions they were in. I’m not saying it was a good thing, but to have the reality of the experiment be that detrimental doesn’t seem real. Another interesting part of the story is how Zimbardo didn’t want to shut the experiment down right away, because he wanted to see the end results.

Psychology relates to this experiment in many ways. The experiment deals with psychological aspects such as behavioral analysis, operant conditioning, motivation, personality, and depression. Behavioral analysis was the way in which they viewed the experiment in a real world setting to see how the prison guards and prisoners acted. Operant conditioning was how the guards had trained the prisoners to do what they wanted them to. When the prisoners performed the right behaviors there was a reward. Motivation involved with motives for prisoners to riot or escape, and the motivation for the guards to try and take control like they did. The personality aspect came out with the personalities that appeared from the volunteers in the experiment and depression was a serious side effect of the experiment.

This was the second time I had heard about the Stanford Prison Experiment but the first time it was just a basic overview of it and it was interesting to learn about it. Cops went and picked up people who had signed up in a newspaper article. Most of the people involved were college students. Researches wanted to observe what would happen if they simulated a prison and put volunteers as prison guards and other volunteers as the prisoners. More specifically they wanted to see what psychological effects would occur when they did this. The experiment was conducted in the basement of a Stanford building.

I actually found many things surprising. The main thing that I found surprising was that the researchers basically gave the prison guards the ok to do whatever they felt was right to enforce the ‘law’. I don’t understand why the researchers would have done this because what could they think was going to happen when they give the guards no rules and allow them to make them up themselves. The prison guards started to abuse their power and its obvious why. Humans, for the most part, will take advantage of power and abuse it once they have it.

I also found the ‘counts’ to be interesting. Guards would wake up prisoners at 2:30 every morning to do a count. A count was when guards would around blowing whistles and waking up the prisoners while making them say their I.D. number. This proved to allow guards to exercise their power over the prisoners. I’d consider this one of the main sources for their thought that they had power. They started to abuse it while practicing the counts. The guards exercised their power in another way: by making prisoners do push ups when they disobeyed rules or gave the guards attitude. Some guards would put their foot on the prisoner’s backs while they did it. I suspect that the guards became more aware that they could do whatever they want and for some reason unknown to me, some guards enjoy inflicting punishment on people. The part about them using a fire extinguisher on the prisoners made me sick. They took it too far. I don’t know how human beings can do this to other human beings.

Psychology relates in this story in many ways. The first place where psychology plays a role is when they make the prisoners strip down at the beginning and then make them wear a dress. In real prisons prisoners are forced to strip naked and be degraded for it. The researchers wanted to simulate that feeling so that’s why they made men wear dresses so they could experience that feeling. The next place where I saw psychology involved was when they made the prisoners wear a hate instead of shaving their heads. In real prisons the prisoners have their heads shaved because this is supposed to aid in making them lose their sense of individuality. So putting hats on their heads was supposed to mimic this.

The most surprising and interesting thing that involved psychology was towards the end when the researchers conducted interviews with the prisoners as if it were a parole board meeting. When asked if they would give up their money to be paroled most of them said yes. At the end of each interview, the prisoners were told to go back to their cells. They all obeyed. The prisoners felt powerless to resist authority. The prisoners sense of reality shifter and the experiment was no longer an experiment, but reality. The prisoners could have asked to just quit the study but instead kept participating.

This study resembles the situation in Abu Ghraib because of the way the guards acted. There was a type of guards who enjoyed humiliating the prisoners. These types of guards existed in Abu Ghraib because they stripped down the prisoners and sexually humiliated them. This is the same type of thing that went on in this experiment. Both of the guards in the experiment looked like they enjoyed the power they had. This scares me actually.

I had heard about this experiment before, but I had not been told of the exact details. I only knew the basic premise of the experiment.

I was really intrigued that the guards and the prisoners had very similar personality types and were assigned to their positions at random. One question I have is how did they get someone to be a warden? Was this someone affiliated with the experiment, or another volunteer?

Once the prisoners were brought in they were strip searched and deloused. I believe this did a very good job of setting the tone for the experiment. The guards were in control, and comfortable, and the prisoners were forced to do something they normally would not, and were treated as lower class citizens. The dresses and chains the prisoners wore also had an impact on them, reminding them constantly of their lack of control and freedom. The smocks were meant to humiliate the inmates and I have no doubt that it did just what it was designed to.

The prisoners were also given ID numbers and were to refer to each other with only those numbers. One thing that surprised me was how quickly the prisoners complied with this rule. I would want to keep hearing my name, and would probably try to call people by theirs every chance I could get. When the priest came, half the prisoners even introduced themselves with their ID number, not their actual name.

The guards were all dressed in kakhi and had whistles, billyclubs and sunglasses. I believe that the sunglasses had the most effect on people. We are trained to look at people's faces to recognize emotions and get an idea of what people are thinking, but with these sunglasses on, the prisoners had no clue as to what was going on in the minds of their captors. I am someone who constantly looks people in the eye, and I feel that not being able to do so would be a very unsettling experience.

One form of punishment applied to the prisoners was the use of push-ups. I believe that this started out innocently enough. It was something that you could have a person do, it would not be too difficult at first, and would be relatively painless. It would be slightly humiliating, but an effective way to control them. After a while, however, the guards began standing on the prisoners backs while they did their push-ups, or made them more difficult in other ways.

I feel like the prisoners revolted on the second day just to see what would happen. I don't think they were fully immersed into the situation and were testing their boundaries. I believe that this revolt really brought the guards into this experiment. This was the turning point where they realized that this was a serious thing, and that there were more prisoners than guards at any given time. The prisoners could try to do something harmful or violent, and the guards really couldn't do much to control it.

This is when the punishments started getting worse for the prisoners. After working their way into the cell the guards stripped the prisoners and took away their beds. This was demeaning to the prisoners, and I'm sure it only infuriated them more.

The guards also had "the hole". This was a closet that was about two feet wide where prisoners were sent for solitary confinement. The rule was that they would only be in there for an hour at a time, but when one prisoner rebelled later on, the guards put him in there for three hours, and were willing to keep him in there all night.

One interesting aspect of the experiment was how easily the prisoners went from working together to wondering if they were going to rat on each other. The guards led them to believe that there were some informants, and this automatically turned the relationship between the prisoners into one of distrust and suspicion. This helped the guards, because a less united front of prisoners is easier to handle.

I think the most amazing part of this experiment was how thoroughly the prisoners believed that they were not allowed to quit. This made them think that it was not an experiment after all, but a real jail. When the prisoners went up for parole and were denied, they had very negative reactions, but were resigned to going back to their cells. Not one tried to quit, or asked to leave.

The psychology of this experiment is absolutely baffling. It not only shows how easily people can form groups and sides, but how eager they are to turn on each other. This experiment is scary, because this sort of thing happens in real life, and it has the same effects on people. Millions of people are imprisoned in the united states, and this is a stressful situation for both the guards and for the prisoners. Both live in fear of the other. I think it is really telling that even the man who came up with this experiment got wrapped up in it, and that the treatment of the prisoners and their states of mind went so far that it had to be shut down nine days early.

After reading more into Phillip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison I saw what horrors really took place. I knew about the experiment and the complications that it ran into part way in and I knew about the purpose of the whole thing but I never know some of the details and mostly how into it Zimbardo got into it himself. I was most interested in how fast people took on their roles of prisoners and guards. It was weird and I knew that people were able to change and take on roles like that but at that rate was surprising. I also never knew that the inmates revolted within the 1st 24 hours and that’s what shaped the rest of the experiment. I feel like if the inmates never would have done that it was have made the whole situation different and more “easy going”, but after embarrassing the guards, as they saw it, the guards decided to crack down and teach them a lesson. Once that happened the rest was downhill and fast. I never knew that one of the inmates’ health declined so quickly causing him to have to be let go. It was funny reading about the possible break in that was also another detail that I didn’t know but it was at that point that I realized how into it Zimbardo had gotten. Once he started to feel like this was a real prison and that the safety of the guards had to be protected, my question there is what about your prisoners? Zimbardo was the leader of the whole project but it seems like even himself was so indulged into it that he went along with the role and instead of protecting everyone was concerned about his assets in the in guards. Lastly the fact that some parents went to get lawyers for their sons because they kind of saw the shape of their sons and wanted to protect them. One psychological point that I am interested in is that almost all the prisoners were willing to give up pay to be done with the guards ways yet none were willing to just quite… to me it shows the will of human. None of them were willing to “give up” and quite but some were willing to take a “plea bargain” and get out. I learned a lot about humans not willing challenging authority power, it kind of traces back to Stanly Milgrams experiment about Americans not refusing to administer a shock to another human even if it may hurt them, solely because a man in a lab coat told them to go on. In my mind this experiment proves that test also true because the “head guy” told everyone they must do this and the prisoners rarely challenged the authority after they started.

I was surprised to learn that the prisoners in the experiment began rebelling after only 1 day. I was also surprised by how easily the seemingly normal subjects played their different roles, like the guards who would never make people in their real lives do the things they made the prisoners do. Also how the prisoners were so deep into their roles that even though they felt mistreated, they didn’t just quit the experiment. I was also surprised that the experiment ended so quickly, I cant imagine what would have happened if it had continued the entire two weeks.

I learned how prison can turn a person into someone totally different from who they were before, how it can make them feel inhuman and hopeless. I also learned that guards in prisons can easily get carried away in certain situations making them do terrible things they thought they would never do. It is very interesting to think about the effect
power has on individual decision making and beliefs about others.

This relates to psychology in several interesting ways. One way in particular is regarding to Ellis' discussion of irrational beliefs. He discusses the idea that no matter which personality you have and which setting you grew up in, it is human nature to have some irrational beliefs, and the way humans think about the environment that surrounds them can be very malleable. This is important to this study, because the malleability of human beliefs entail the idea that it is the beliefs humans have about the world around them and the people they encounter that solely directs their behaviors and emotions. The experiment also reminded me of the Milgrim studies, which showed that people, when under instructions by “powerful” individuals, react rather differently than their beliefs and morals might predict.

Thank goodness that this experiment could never even be considered to take place today. It is horrible the things that all of these people went through. It is horrible the way that the prisoners were treated; but it is also just as horrible for how the guards feel after looking back on how they were consumed by their new power and how they treated the prisoners. It is scary to think how when put into a situation and given simple instructions of what you are to do how a person can completely forget who they are and be completely consumed by a role. There is a movie that just came out last year called The Experiment. It doesn’t claim to be based off of the real experiment however the movie made me physically and mentally ill to watch. It was so hard to see these average Joes off the streets be completely overcome by their roles and turn into these monsters.

I think the idea of mob rule had a play in this experiment, at least in the case of the guards. I think if there would have only been one or two guards with all of these prisoners the guards wouldn’t have been nearly as manipulative and vicious as they became. When people are in a group of people, they tend to do things they would never think of doing if by themselves. This is especially true during the second day of the experiment. The guards weren’t sure what to do so they called in more and kept the men on from the night before and once they had a larger group the decisions were easier to make since everyone just began to agree with one another, even though these decisions were wrong.

The shaving of the head was interesting to me, because this is what still to this day happens to soldiers. I don’t think the military is trying to degrade the soldiers in any way, but it does make you think. This was seen as a form of punishment in the experiment; tearing the prisoners down, making them feel naked, taking away their identities in a way. I wonder if sometimes this is how soldiers feel. Or instead do they feel alike, and connected to their fellow soldiers? Granted, I am a girl so my hair might be more of a big deal to me that a guys hair is to him, but I would be devastated and humiliated if I were made to shave my hair or cut it really short. My hair helps me express myself; I would feel naked without it. This would tear me down immediately if I were participating in these experiments.

One of the parts of this websites that was really disturbing to me was the comparison of prisoner #416 (refused to eat food and was put in isolation for hours) to an inmate who really spent time in isolation. One of the goals of prison is to deter the prisoner and others from committing crimes because of the consequences, but it seems that isolation for this inmate only made him more bitter and more likely to commit crime! He was so outraged by having to spend time all by himself for so long that all he wanted to do was get revenge on the people that put him in there. Being alone for extended periods of time is not good for anyone. As humans we need contact and social interactions with other people. Without these a person will literally go insane. I know that when a prisoner is harmful to themselves and others this seems like the only option, well time to start thinking of a new one. Isolation just seems to make things worse, not better. Either a person comes out depressed and psychotic or they come out filled with rage and hatred.

Another thing that I found almost disturbing was how the experimenters themselves got so involved and taken over by their roles. They were so blinded by the whole thing that for a little while they forgot this was just an experiment, and that it wasn’t real. The parents were even taken over to think that their boys were tough and they would be fine, they would just seem them on their next visit one father had said.

The things that happened to the prisoners were probably the most disturbing. They felt hopeless, as if they were really in jail and never going to get out. They lost sight of the fact that after 14 days they would get to go back home and go on as life before they started the experiment, however they could not see this. They even started to not trust one another, even though sticking together would have been the best for them. Instead of being a group of prisoners they were instead a bunch of individual prisoners just trying to survive. Even when they went to their hearings and were denied being able to leave they didn’t try to fight it or just get up and say “I am leaving” like they could of at anytime; instead these prisoners thought they truly were prisoners and they couldn’t ever leave!

The guards literally treated the prisoners like objects, dehumanizing them to nothing. I wonder how long, even after the experiment was over, for the prisoners to get over what had happened to them?! I bet there was some classical conditioning that happened here. I am sure that whenever one of the prisoners saw a guard or police officer after the experiment they became numb and felt dehumanized again or at least for awhile. I also wonder how long after the experiment did the guards feel remorse for the prisoners or disgust of themselves for what they did. It would almost feel like it wasn’t really them. That they couldn’t actually believe the things they did.

This experiment is very scary to think about, how when put into a situation and given a few instructions on what to do, how you can become so engulfed by your role that you lose sense of yourself and your morals. Every single person, experimenters included, lost themselves in their roles. They became things they didn’t want to or normally wouldn’t be. I understand Brothers is a fictional movie, but the scene where Toby Mcguire brutally beats his fellow soldier to death with a baseball bat because he has been physically and mentally torn apart, happens more than we think. When we see pictures of soldiers doing brutal things and vice versa, I wonder if they can actually be to blame; I mean we see what a 6 day experiment did to these healthy college men. I couldn’t imagine what a year or even a few months in war could do to a person.

I have actually viewed this same website of the Stanford Prison Experiment in another class. This study was done to look at the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted from August 14-20, 1971 led by Philip Zimbardo, a psychology professor at Stanford University, and a group of researchers.

When first viewing the experiment, it doesn’t seem so bad. However, the experiment is a lot different than just discussing it or viewing it on a piece of paper. First, they picked twenty-four men out of seventy-five to be randomly assigned a role as a prisoner or a prison guard. Twelve of these men would be a prison guard and the other twelve would be the prisoners. By assigning these roles, researchers were hoping to see if the environment affects people’s behavior.

I honestly did not think that much would happen in six days; even two weeks doesn’t seem like it would have much of an effect. However, I was wrong. Right when the guards put on their military uniforms with sunglasses (which kept them from having direct eye contact with prisoners which changes emotions) and the prisoners were put in their uniforms; everything changed. The guards with their nightsticks gave them a sense of power; the prisoners in their chains made them inferior to the guards’ control.

I was shocked to read about rebellion already taking place on the second day. The prisoner who started it was put in the “hole.” At first I did not understand why there would already be an outburst but then once I realized that people were not happy with the roles they were given, I had a new understanding. Things really became real and the guards were now furious; it was now prisoners against guards. The guards took the matter seriously and were now going to do whatever they could to make the prisoners feel uncomfortable. They started by waking the prisoners up and making them clean toilets with their bare hands as well as doing other unnecessary tasks.

I found this whole experiment to be interesting. I couldn’t believe that by the fifth day that four prisoners had already left. When the prisoners were actually convinced that they could not leave, that’s when the experiment took another turn for the worst. Zimabardo, taking on the role of the prison superintendent as well as running the experiment was more conflicting than he believed it would be. There was actually a point when Zimbardo lost sight of the experiment because he did become so involved; this could have been prevented if Zimbardo wouldn’t have taken on a double role. The experiment stopped after just six days because prisoners felt shame and guards felt guilt which is unethical to do to people.

Psychology relates because this experiment proves that the role people play shapes their behavior and attitude. Looking at prisons, the environment (situational factors) plays a huge role in shaping behavior. Those who volunteered to be part of this experiment were men who had no evidence of any problems. Since they appeared to be good people, many would not assume that their role as a guard or a prisoner would really matter because they would know that it was just an experiment. However, we see that the idea of good people not doing bad things may change by putting good people in a bad place. The bad place, being the prison, won over the good people. We have seen another experiment somewhat like this when Stanley Milgram did his experiment which proved that people would continue to administer shocks because the power of authority.

In the end, I was just shocked about how serious this experiment was taken and the damage it was actually doing. At times, the experiment got out of control and that is why it had to be stopped. I learned a lot from viewing this experiment, especially about what one can and cannot do in an experiment. Since I have already viewed this website, I would eventually like to view this experiment from a different standpoint.

I have heard of the Standford Prison Experiment before, but until I was asked to view the website, I had not thought much about it and disregarded it. As I was viewing the slide show and reading the steps of the experiment I was surprised at the direction and intense speed of the intensity that this study had taken. In such a short period of time, these prison guards took on a complete role of power and authoritarative and barbaric behaviors they had grown to become. They appeared to be at the point where they had a craving and took advantage of their role with this intense power and seemed as though it would be hard for them to come down from this “high” that they were on in this aggressive role or behavior-playing role. It would have been interesting if these same test individuals could have taken the challenge of the reverse roles and played the part of the broken prisoners—to see what the other side of the spectrum felt like.

On the other hand the prisoners were degraded at an intense level. They were dehumanized in such a short period of time, it was overwhelming for them to react and take the time to move into the position or think about how this may have adverse effects on them. Their heads were shaved to minimize the individuality of the person and were called by an ID number, not their name. Even in this short-term study, they were stripped naked and had taken on this intense role for several hours. The individuals were drained emotionally and physically as well—with intense push ups, mattresses were removed and solitary confinement was experienced in a very small space. The bathroom privileges that were revoked were very dehumanizing and appeared to be an excessive measure to be used in this experiment.

The study was stopped six days into the two week experiment, due to extreme conditions and the participants strain, safety and mental status. The experiment went to the extreme into bringing in a priest, family visits, and lawyers to make this as close to reality as possible. The intensity was probably greater in the experiment after trying to cram it all into a two week time frame. I am not so sure that anyone would be allowed to conduct this level of experiment today. Privacy rights were abused, even though they were volunteers in the study. Legality issues at all levels were raised and are very questionable. This was truly messing with the minds, emotions, integrity ethical and psychological issues at every level.

Psychology levels were intensely abused with high levels of stress. After a lengthy period of time, personalities, emotions and anger levels were altered and could have had long lasting effects on these individuals if the study had continued much longer.