Social Psychology Experiment The Stanford Prison Experiment

After the famous social psychology experiment, The Stanford Prison Experiment, many have asked whether or not this experiment can really portray how imprisonment can effect an individual. While some say that this experiment is a great representation of the effects caused due to imprisonment, others argue that the experiment was not realistic enough to say it had real effects. Social psychologists Craig Haney and Philip Zimbardo, also the creators of the Stanford Prison Experiment, state that the experiment stimulated a realistic feel. Therefore, this experiment can be said to have a high external validity. In other words, this experiment’s results can be applied to the general population of imprisoned individuals (pg. 206). On the other hand, behavioral geneticist David Lykken exclaims that the artificial similarities that were added to stimulate the prison environment are not sufficient to understand the effects of being imprisoned. This is due to the short amount of time tha t the study was ran and the fact that many of the participants had a distinct psychological background than most criminals (pg. 207). The focus of this paper is to critique and present both sides of the argument. Craig Haney and Philip Zimbardo created a famous experiment called the Stanford Prison Experiment. In this experiment, healthy and normal college students were assigned to be either prisoners or guards. After only 6 days of this simulation, many of the mock-prisoners had to plead for theShow MoreRelatedThe Stanford Prison Experiment And Its Effects On Social Psychology1003 Words   |  5 PagesThe Stanford Prison Experiment and its Effects on Social Psychology The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the most notorious and unique experiments in modern social psychology history. A psychologist named Philip Zimbardo executed the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971. His goal for this experiment was to show that the prison guards and convicts would fall into pre-defined roles, rather than following their own judgment and morals. The experiment was unsuccessful, but it produced some resultsRead MoreI Chose The Topic Of Prison Psychology With A Focus On1198 Words   |  5 PagesI chose the topic of prison psychology with a focus on the Stanford prison experiment and the psychological effects of systematic abuse. Zimbardo, Philip G. Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: A Lesson in the Power of Situation. The Chronicle of Higher Education, no. 30, 2007. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uhd.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=truedb=edsgbcAN=edsgcl.161992127site=eds-livescope=site. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study on the psychological effectsRead MoreThe Stanford Prison Experiment At Stanford University1239 Words   |  5 Pagesstudent at Stanford University in California. Like most college kids, you are strapped for cash, so you begin to seek a part time job. You see an ad for a psychology study that pays $15 per day posted in the local newspaper, and decide to submit an application. Little do you know at the time, that the study you are applying for will become known worldwide and create such an impact that it remains relevant over 44 years later. This infamous study is known today as the Stanford Prison Experiment. The experimentRead MoreLate Adulthood705 Words   |  3 PagesZimbardo, a psychology professor at Stanford University. Zimbardo researching how prisoners and guards learned submissive and authoritarian roles. There was an ad placed in the newspaper by Zimbardo seeking male subjects to participate in his research experiment. There wa s a $15 per day compensation offered to the chosen participants. There were roughly 75 people to respond to the professors ad. However there were only 25 chosen to participate in the experiment needed for a study of prison life. ZimbardoRead MoreThe Stanford Prison Experiment : Stanford University1697 Words   |  7 PagesThe Stanford Prison Experiment On the morning of August 17, 1971, ten men were arrested from their homes in the Palo Alto area, each with charges of burglary and theft. They were taken to the local police station where they were booked, fingerprinted, blindfolded, and transported to the Stanford Prison - also known as the Psychology department at Stanford University. Not even Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the experiment that would shape the field of psychology for years to come, couldRead MorePhilip Zimbardo s Father Of The Stanford Prison Experiment1168 Words   |  5 PagesFather of the Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo is known for his famous prison experiment that revealed some important facts about human nature. This type of experiment had never been done before. The Stanford prison experiment was designed to find out â€Å"whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards or had more to do with the prison environment† (McLeod 1). Zimbardo was influenced by the Milgram experiment, which was a studyRead MoreThe Stanford Prison Experiment1658 Words   |  7 Pagesimportant issues today. The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted over 40 years ago, brought these ethical issues into the limelight and remains one of the most controversial studies in the history of studying human behavior. This paper aims to define ethics, describe risk/benefit ratio, provide a brief background on the Stanford Prison Experiment, and evaluate the impact it has had on psychological research. â€Æ' The Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford Prison Experiment probably tops a lot of listsRead MoreZimbardo Research Paper1029 Words   |  5 Pages The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study conducted in 1971 by Dr. Phillip Zimbardo. According to Dr. Steve Taylor (2007), â€Å"It’s probably the best known psychological study of all time.† (Classic Studies in Psychology, 2007). Zimbardo stated that the point was to see what would happen if he put â€Å"really good people in a bad place† (Dr. Zimbardo, 2007). He did this during a time were most college students were protesting for peace and were against anything authoritarian. The experiment containedRead MoreThe Media Of My Choice Was The Stanford Prison Experiment Essay1365 Words   |  6 Pageschoice was the Stanford Prison Experiment movie. The movie gave an in-depth view on how the experiment came about and what happened during the process. Within this paper I will give details on what exactly the Stanford Prison Experiment was, diff erent topics we learned over the course of Social Psychology that relate to the Stanford Prison Experiment and the affects it had on me and could have on others. The Stanford Prison Experiment took place August 14-20th 1971. It was an experiment conducted byRead MoreZimbardo Doesn t Have An Extraordinary Life1150 Words   |  5 Pagesemotional breakdowns and psychosomatic rashes all because of a mock prison experience? Surely it would be unethical and inappropriate to imprison 20 strangers into a basement of a universities’ psychology building merely to observe how they would act towards one another. But to Philip Zimbardo this unheard of experiment was just another day on the job. This young psychology major could have never predicted that his landmark experiment would become such a highly talked about documentation of the true