Monday, September 13, 2010

The Stanford Prison Experiment


WARNING: What you are about to read may disturb you...


Please click on this link to read about one of the most controversial experiments of our time: The Stanford prison experiment. Read meticulously (carefully), as some of the most fascinating (and disturbing) elements of this experiment are in the little details.


When you have finished reading, I'd like you to use the blog to respond to what you have read. I'm not going to give you guiding questions this time; instead, I'd like you to ask your own questions and offer your own, authentic responses. Tomorrow in class we will be connecting this experiment to The Crucible.


Remember that the blog is space to have a conversation, so read others' comments, respond to others' questions, and react to others' reactions.

29 comments:

  1. I thought that this experiment was cool and interesting when I first started to read it. But as I kept reading my mind started to change about the people participating in the experiment. How could normal, middle class, mentaly stable students boy students let this get so out of hand. I just cant see a group of boys treating other boys so badly when they new it was being video taped and they were doing this to HUMANS they knew. My question is what would have happened if the experiment went on any longer? What could the guards imagination more produce to torture the prisoners.

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  2. I thought it was kind of wierd how you never hear about prisoners in real world prisons having this alot and in the experiment almost all the prisoners were affected somehow. I would never imagine that people who volunteered to do this had that happen to them especially when they knew it wasnt real and they could quit anytime they wanted to.

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  3. I thought it was a strange experiment. why would anyone want to torture someone like that? and what would have happened if the experiment went on longer.

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  4. and also, why didn't they quit if they could any time?

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  5. Did the students know each other before this experiment? because if they did or didnt i think it would affect the way the would treat each other. This article also made me wonder how people react to power, because obviously the prison gaurds abused their power.

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  6. This experiment is awesome but also wrong at the same time. He proved that in certin cituation that humas are sadistic. That we like to hurt eachother. It also proved that humans can also bend to the will of another. But that were still sadistic. The sodomy was very gay and torturas. Probably should have benn stoped right away. But this experiment is messed up. This guy is crazy and should be seen by many doctors.

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  7. I thought that this experiment proves that when people are given power, they go insane. Im assuming that the boys that played the roles of the guards were really nice boys, but when given power like nate said, they abused it. In response to Sean F's question, i think that the prisoners did not quit because the experiment made them feel worthless and therefor they felt like they deserved prison.

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  8. I think that this experiment was cool and insiteful, but I also think that they should not have tested this on graduated college students, but they should test this on cops and inmates to see the actual events that would occur. The reading was a little disturbing saying that 5 people asked to stop in a short period of time. This shows the power that humans have to make others bend and mold to our own will.

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  9. I believe that this experiment was not wrong it was an experiment that helped us out and showed us how people act like. The experiment wasnt wrong because if the people in it didnt like it then they could leave at anytime and drop out of the experiment. This experiment had to have been very extreme becuase 5 people dropped out early and I think that isnt very common to do in a college experiment. I think the prisoners quit because they didnt belive that they could act and be treated as prisoners cause they didnt do anything to deserve to be treated like that.

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  10. I thought that the experiment was interesting and daring, because it made you think of how corruptible people can become and how different people can become even though they have the same background. Also i think that he should have been stopped earlier like Cortez said but he only really stopped because Christina Maslach, a graduate student he was then dating, told him to stop. What does that say about his own morality?

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  11. At first I thought the experiment was interesting because I had never heard of someone recreating a jail before just to see how the people whould react towards each other. In the begining it seemed like the participants were enjoying beging part of the experiment but as time went on they were more willing to quit than stick it out. The "guards" started to feel more powerful and began tormenting the "prisoners" and ordering them to do embrrassing things just because they could. Why wasnt anyone willing to make them stop? If Zimbardo was in charge of the experiment and was watching the whole time why did he stop the guards? I think this experiment proves that when power is handed to people they can either choose to do good things with it or in this case use it against those less powerful.

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  12. The results from this experiment were very interesting. i found it incredible how quickly the prisoners and guards were truly affected. after only a few days they were showing signs of internalizing the roles they had been given and some were so psychologically disturbed that they had to leave, and nobody lasted past six days. it seems like it should take longer than that for your personality to change based on circumstances, but i guess it proves just how moldable humans are. i wonder how the results would have been different if the participants hadn't been told it was an experiment?

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  13. At first youd expect the experiment to seem harmless and just another way to simulate the prisioners experieces, but as I continued to read, it became more and more demeaning. The people actually began to become their roles and I was shocked they didn't stop when the one man went crazy. The continued on and pushed an inocent experiece to become something crazy. This relates to The Cruicble in many ways such as blaming people as witches. It leads me to the question, what are you supossed to do when the person in control, loses control?

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  14. I thought the experiment was very interesting; how people of normal mental status can forget they're only playing a role and become more cruel than prison guards real life. They took away things that we today call necessities like mattresses, clothing, and sanitation. I think it might have been the "guards" lack of training and preparation which gave them instant power, gratification, and no self control. One question I do have is why would the professor let it get that out of hand? he could've had them always under observation by staff and seperated him self and given someone else the highest power position. I think this experiment shows how instant gratification can spoil us and also that not everyone deserves to have that power.

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  15. I thought that this experiment was very interesting but to a certain point was wrong. I thought that was wrong because after awhile people were begging to get hurt not physically but mentally which in some cases can be more fatal. However the experiment did prove and interesting point that it showed the power that humans poses that can make people believe things or say things that they would have never in their right mind of or believed. Relating this back to "The Crucible" it shows how people were persuaded to admit that they were witches and if they did not they were hanged.

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  16. Why do they allow "prison guards" to mentally harass the prisoners so much? Also, Would a real prison guard be allowed to take away a prisoners matress as punishment? I think that mental harassment can go much deeper and have a greater affect on a person than physicall harassment. If they get in to their minds, they have a greater control over the prisoners than if they were to just physically beat them. It does not seem like it would be legal to make a prisoner sleep on concrete and take away their matress.

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  17. Okay well I thought that instead of researching why people are crazy when their out of jail maybe they should go find out why does SNL still have a show and how to make ice cream never melt or how George Bush is still alive but this experiment was pretty crazy but the experiments knew what they were getting their self into and think about the real prison guards out there They do that all the time plus must of them aren't white, middle class, actors so I salute you mister Prison guard man for taking the job that could one day make you go crazy

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  18. I think this experiment had good intentions but the researchers maybe had not thought of the post experiment psychological effects it would have on the participants. Maybe the abuse form the guards came from suppressed anger and the couldnt handle the power.

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  19. This experiment had a decent goal but the way everyone digressed in such a short time shows that something went wrong in a lot of ways. cause yeah in six days of 24 hour treatment people can be driven to the point where what you tell them is the truth but it seems that this got way to far out of hand in just six days.

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  20. I think the prison guards used their power to their advantage and made them do whatever they felt like to the guards. Also it wondered like why did they get chosen and not anyone else? Also if it was just an experiment why didn't the inmates just leave if they being abused like that. I think that just made them all go crazy and it sounded like it got out of hand, fast.

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  21. As I started to read into the article I thought it was going to turn into some sort of boring experiment but towards the end all i could think about was how they could do this and not get into legal trouble?! The simulated sodomy is what really surprised me, were charges pressed on anyone? This whole thing got out of hand way to fast.

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  22. Initially I thought that it was an illegally operated experiment but the fact that it was under the consent of Stanford and other high authorities is kind of sickening. It was obvious that an experiment in which the morality and mentality of the test subject is tested and tested rigorously it will never end well. As it ended up happening, the guards got carried away in their portrayal and in doing so it forced the mentality of the prisoners to miniscule amounts and even breaking as in the supposed case of inmate No. 8612. What is an interesting finding though is these were all test subjects and the prisoners are undergrads at Harvard, so they have a stable conscience and a set of morals, while in the case of an actual prison where the prisoners are unstable lethal and immoral but they too are supposedly forced into this situation only for gratuitous amounts of time it is any wonder how/ why these people were able to get out of a situation like that.

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  23. I thought that the experiment coming from a psychological level was successful for the scientist. But on the other hand coming from the side of the students that partake in this experiment, it was misleading and damaging to the subject as well as breaking the bylaws set up by the APA(American Psychological Association) which prohibit psychologist from emotionally or physically harming a subject in any way in an experiment.

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  24. Like lee said i thought that this experiment was going to be relatively pointless, but as I read on i couldnt help but wonder why no one did anything about it?

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  25. Why did the experiment get so out of hand so fast? I think it got so out of hand because the people picked for the situation were the most mentally healthy, but, when put into a position of power, it is hard to not become power hungry when your power is not checked by something else.
    What triggered the complete helplessness of the inmates? I believe it was the illusion of the lack of a higher authority. Like in the Salem with trials, they had no one to tell them when to stop, until it was too late. In a situation like this and the Salem witch trails, it is a necessity to have a figure of higher authority that can keep the situation under control, so the something like this doesn’t happen again.

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  26. This is such a weird and disgusting experiment. Real students were verbally and mentally harmed within such a short time.
    The scary thing is, humans in general don't react well in bad situations. What would we have done? Could we have risen above the evil or been sucked into it?

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  27. I don't know how a person would want to hurt another person, this experiment to me seems to have no point and is just cruel to humans. I don't see why anyone let this experiment happen and why they let it last for six's day even though five men from the experiment dropped out early.

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  28. I honestly don't see why the prisoners quit because they were being treated horribly. How did this experiment effect the people in it after the experiment was over? why do people in high positions usually treat people under them horribly?

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  29. I thought that this experiment was very strange. I don’t think they should have even done this experiment to begin with. But we did gain some incredible insight into how cruel humans can be, no matter the background that a person might have came from. I question why no one was overseeing the whole experiment over Zimbardo. Also, how were the prisoners and guards impacted by this experiment?

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