The Power of the Situation: Philip Zimbardo's 1971 Prison Experiment.

The Basic Design:

• Zimbardo’s famous (1971) experiment was designed to study the effect of the role of prisoner or prison guard on “normal” individuals.
  
  
• Nine perfectly healthy and mentally stable young men were randomly assigned to be prisoners, and nine were randomly assigned to be guards.
  
  
• In a Stanford basement that had been converted into a makeshift jail, the prisoners were held and subjected to processes meant to strip them of dignity and power. The guards were given a great deal of freedom in their treatment of the prisoners.
  
  
• The experiment produced unexpectedly strong results – the prisoners quickly forgot that they were participants in the experiment and acted much like real prisoners, becoming submissive to authority and planning escapes. The guards soon became harsh in their treatment of prisoners, coming up with overly controlling rituals such as middle-of-the-night cell checks.
  
  
• Though the experiment was supposed to last for two weeks, it was terminated after only 6 days because of the powerful hold their roles had on the participants. This study demonstrates that social context drives behavior more than people think it does. It illustrates both the power of social roles on behavior on the importance of being sensitive to potential ethical issues throughout the course of research.

Timeline of Events:

Day 1 (Sunday): Surprise arrests: Local police officers Prisoners are stripped naked "deloused" and put into prisoner outfits, basically a smock with a number Learn the Rules Degradation: Counts
Day 2 (Monday): Rebellion in cell2 Good cell 3 Prisoner 8612 has a meltdown
Day 3 (Tuesday): Visitors & rioters: Clean the prison & have families come to visit Complaints hearing Zimbardo plants an informer Zimbardo moves the prisoners out of fear of break-in
Day 4 (Wednesday): Things spiral out of control Priest visits Prisoner 819 leaves Spy leaves New Prisoner #416 enters: Refuses to eat his sausages Parole Board Hearing (3 themes: blurs line of reality of experiment vs. imprisonment, prisoners subservience & seriousness, and transformation of Prescott)
Day 5 (Thursday): Violence begins Prisoners 1037 (Rich) & 4325 (Jim) breaks Zimbardo's Fiancee Christina Maslach gets upset after seeing the boys lead to the bathroom with bags over their head Tim the lawyer comes and consults with the boys Sexual harrassment begins: Makes the boys act as camels & hump one another
Day 6 (Friday): Ends experiment

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