Stanford Prison Experiment
Summary and Critique of The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Stanford
Prison Experiment of 1973 raises troubling questions about the ability of
individuals to exist repressive or obedient roles, if the social setting
requires these roles. Philip K. Zimbardo, professor of Psychology at Stanford
University, began researching how prisoners and guards assume submissive and
authoritarian roles. He set out to do this by placing advertisements in a local
newspaper, stating that male college students would be needed for a study of
prison life paying fifteen dollars per day for one to two days. Of the
seventy-five responses, twenty-one were selected, half of them as “guards”
(Zimbardo p. 364) and the other half as “prisoners.” (Zimbardo p. 364) Philip
Zimbardo’s primary goal in this experiment was to find out the process when
prisoners and guards become controlling and passive. He did this by setting up a
mock prison in which all of the prisoners were assigned the same uniforms and
cells, and used numbers instead of names. The guards were assigned uniforms and
offices, somewhat similar to the prisoners except they were equipped with billy
clubs, whistles, handcuffs, and keys, and had freedom. These conditions allowed
a setting similar to prisons; this also allowed everyone to be stripped of
identifying characteristics, therefore “equal.” One of Philip Zimbardo’s claims
was the “process” of becoming a prisoner. In this process, all of the applicants
were arrested, read their rights, and charged with a felony. After they were
taken down to the station to be fingerprinted, each prisoner was left isolated
to wonder what he did. After a while, he was blindfolded and transported to the
“Stanford County Prison.” Here, he was stripped naked, skin-searched, deloused
and given a uniform, bedding, soup, and a towel. In this “mock prison” (Zimbardo
p. 365) “prisoners” lost their liberty, civil rights, independence and privacy,
while “guards” gain social power by accepting the responsibility for controlling
the lives of their dependent charges. In the mock prison, inverse psychological
relationships developed between prisoners and guards. Prisoners began to feel
that there was no way to beat the system. They felt that it is better to do
nothing, except what the guards told them. They didn’t want, act, or feel
anything so they wouldn’t get in trouble. Guards, on the other hand, assumed
authority roles to control the prisoners and keep the prison in order. Some of
the guards reacted extremely, and behaved with hostility and cruelty towards the
prisoners. Others, however, were kinder, and occasionally did favors for the
prisoners and didn’t punish them as much. On the morning of the second day of
the experiment, the prisoners broke out in a rebellion. They barricaded
themselves in their cells by pushing their cots up against the cell doors; they
also proceeded to curse and jeer at the prison guards. The guards regained
control of the prison by spraying fire extinguishers on the prisoners and
stripping them of their clothing. The guards also forced the leaders of the riot
into solitary confinement. Following the riot, the prisoners were more compliant
to the rules the guards laid out for them. There was never another united
uprising by the prisoners against their authority figures, the guards. After the
prisoners had accepted and fully assumed their roles, they suffered a loss of
identity. This led the prisoners to not relate with one another on a personal
level; it caused them to try and survive in their environment and concentrate on
their personal well being. Eventually the prisoners became like sheep trying to
survive and stay out of trouble. They lost the need to relate to others and have
social relationships. With this loss of normal relationships entailing personal
connections and social connections they lost respect for one another. There are
some reasons that people voluntarily become prisoners. “Some people choose to
remain prisoners so that we do not have to be responsible for our actions.”
(Zimbardo p.375) I agree with this statement, because it somewhat relates to the
workforce in America. Some people get paid in commission, or how much work they
accomplish, and others get paid by the hour. In some cases, the people that get
paid by the hour wish to not have a lot of actions to be responsible for, and
choose to get told what to do, rather than figure it out themselves. In
conclusion, the mind can actually keep people in jail. This happens because
people get so associated with what is going on inside, such as escape plans, how
horrible the food is, tactics to convince specific guards with to get a
cigarette, permission to use the bathroom, or some other favor, that they forget
about what happens outside. They forget about what the past was like, and what
the future could be, but instead focus on the situation at hand. This proves
that people don’t have to be physically in jail to be mentally confined. In my
opinion, I think that this experiment was very unjust. I think this because the
environment wasn’t properly set. In the prison there were no windows, and other
environmental factors, and the guards were not trained properly. Since the
guards were picked at random, and had the same expertise as the prisoners had
regarding punishment. Therefore, the prisoners were not treated properly, adding
to the environmental defects. Finally, I think that this experiment could be
perfected if true inmates, guards, and prisons were
used.
Bibliography
Zimbardo, Philip K. “The Stanford Prison
Experiment.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. 7th Edition. Laurence
Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman, 2000. 363 - 375