Have you heard of Stanford Prison Experiment?
I would like you to go through the description of it and then discuss the following questions.Moreover, watch the short films that discuss it.
Go to http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/1
The questions:
1. What police procedures are used during arrests, and how do these procedures lead people to feel confused, fearful, and dehumanized?
2. If you were a guard, what type of guard would you have become? How sure are you?
3. What prevented "good guards" from objecting or countermanding the orders from tough or bad guards?
4. If you were a prisoner, would you have been able to endure the experience? What would you have done differently than those subjects did? If you were imprisoned in a "real" prison for five years or more, could you take it?
5. Why did our prisoners try to work within the arbitrary prison system to effect a change in it (e.g., setting up a Grievance Committee), rather than trying to dismantle or change the system through outside help?
6. What factors would lead prisoners to attribute guard brutality to the guards' disposition or character, rather than to the situation?
7. What is "reality" in a prison setting? This study is one in which an illusion of imprisonment was created, but when do illusions become real? Contrast consensual reality and physical or biological reality, and explain the implications of the following poem (by PGZ): Within the illusion of life,
Death is the only reality,
but
is Reality the only death?
Within the reality of imprisonment,
Illusion is the only freedom,
but
is Freedom the only illusion?
8. What is identity? Is there a core to your self-identity independent of how others define you? How difficult would it be to remake any given person into someone with a new identity?
9. Do you think that kids from an urban working class environment would have broken down emotionally in the same way as did our middle-class prisoners? Why? What about women?
10. After the study, how do you think the prisoners and guards felt when they saw each other in the same civilian clothes again and saw their prison reconverted to a basement laboratory hallway?
11. Moving beyond physical prisons built of steel and concrete, what psychological prisons do we create for ourselves and others? If prisons are seen as forms of control which limit individual freedom, how do they differ from the prisons we create through racism, sexism, ageism, poverty, and other social institutions? Extend your discussion to focus on:
* The illusion of prison created in marriages where one spouse becomes "guard" and the other becomes "prisoner"
* The illusion of prison created in neurosis where one aspect of the person becomes the prisoner who is told he/she is inadequate and hopeless, while another aspect serves as a personal guard
* The silent prison of shyness, in which the shy person is simultaneously his or her own guard and prisoner
12. Was it ethical to do this study? Was it right to trade the suffering experienced by participants for the knowledge gained by the research? (The experimenters did not take this issue lightly, although the Slide Show may sound somewhat matter-of-fact about the events and experiences that occurred).
13. How do the ethical dilemmas is this research compare with the ethical issues raised by Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments? Would it be better if these studies had never been done?
14. If you were the experimenter in charge, would you have done this study? Would you have terminated it earlier? Would you have conducted a follow-up study?
15. How can we change our real institutions, such as Attica Prison, when they are designed to resist critical evaluation and operate in relative secrecy from taxpayers and legislators?
16. Knowing what this research says about the power of prison situations to have a corrosive effect on human nature, what recommendations would you make about changing the correctional system in your country?
Retrieved from http://www.prisonexp.org/discussion.htm, 11.10.10
On the basis of the above movie and other movies I have seen on TV, I think that police during the time of arresting a person does not think if a given person is guilty of what he/she did but they treat them as guilty straight away. They have no mercy, they do not think about the character/sensibility of a given person, of reactions of their family, e.g. their minor children who have nothing to do with behaviour of their parents or siblings. They prepare kind of a show, they do not think about the consequences for the family or for the person being arrested.
ReplyDeleteFor the time being, I cannot imagine the situation I am a guard, but I hope I will be a good one. I do not undersatnd how a person can treat another person in such a bad manner it was shown in the movie. But as it was explained in the speech of Mr Zimbardo it is hard to predict if a given person will behave in a given situation. I think that the good guards do not have as strong characters as the bad ones. They have human feelings, but in fact they do not object because they are not the strongesr ones, they want to protect themselves from being dehumikliated by their colleagues.
I have never been to prison; therefore, I cannot even think about such a situation. As far as I know my person, I would try to defend myself, but it will not probably work as I will not manage to fight with a group of people having power, and at the same time, differnt opinion I do have.
I think that the prisoners would like to look for help from outside, but in fact, people who have not been placed in a given situation and environment cannot understand it. People who experience the same try to cooperate and support each other. I think it also refers to student who do not pass their exams. Even though they are not friends, at the moment they need to repeat the exam they start to cooperate with each other. they are no longer competiitors They know that common work and exchange of knowledge and ideas can make them pass the exam.
I think that is a 'bad guard' is placed outside the prison area and he still behaves in abrutal manner towards a prisoner even though he was released from the prison, then we can say that the bruatlity is a matter of ones behaviour not the situation at all.
As I read the poem about the illusion of life, I think we can allocate it to each sphere of life. Each stick has to ends. With regard to prison reality, I think that prisoners treat the prison life as an illusion, as a bad dream. It depends on the situation, on their mood if they try to wake up from this bad dream. Having the sense of illusion is probably one of things that make the prisoners survive.
Identity is hard to define. I think that it is the way we perceive ourselves. But in fact the way we do this is very often influenced by opinions of other people. This is a sad true, because no matter what we wear, no matter what car we drive at a given moment, we are still the same persons, but others very often make us feel it is not true.
If we consider the emotionall breakdown, it is rather dependent on our personality. the stronger our character is, the more we can stand. If we consider women, they are very often stronger than men and they support them.
I think that after the study, the persons who were acting as 'bad guards' felt dehumiliated as well. They were probably ashamed of their actions.
ReplyDeleteI think that we can observe lots of these psychological prisons all around us. In case of couples, very often we can observe that one person is being guarded by the other. There are cases, when both parties are satisfied with this state of things, but unfortuantely, there are situations when one partyis too weak to fight for his/her rights. Taking racism into account, there are countries where people of different ethnic or religious background are being treated in a worse way, just because they were born in another country or they have different colour of skin. They cannot find good job even though they have better qualifications that the natives.
If we talk about ethics, I have difficulty with saying if the study was ethic or not. On one hand, scientists could expect what would happen to the students, but obn the other hand, could they expect all the outcomes of the experiment and their seriousness?
I think that scientists are conducting the studies having good purposes in mind, they want to learn, to gain new knowledge. Anyhow, I think I would stop a study if I was a scientist and observe that the study is affecting people in a bad way. I think that I would aplly a follow-up tretament in order to help the persons who experiences serious side effects as a result of participation in the study.
I think that we need prisons in order to make people obey some rules and regulations. Anyhow, having the above research in mind, I think that there shall be more psychologists working in the prisons. Sometimes people feel guilty for what theu did and they want to repeiar their fault. In such a case the prison envirnment showed in the movie will not help. Such people need support. They need to be placed in an environmengt that would make them feel that they are surrounded by good people and that these people are their 'heroes' they should follow.
1.
ReplyDeleteThey arrest people in the public with handcuffs, to put them into a situation of starting to think about evil things.
2.
I would like to be a good guard because people should not hurt each other and keep an peaceful relationship between individuals. I am sure that I will be a good guard because I am a peaceful man.
3.
It is because I think the good guards are scared of the bad guards they do not want to get hurt.
4.
I simply refused to answer that question as I have all the relevant reasons till this stage of my life not to visualize myself in situation like imprisonment. But, if I was sentenced with imprisonment, It depends on the situations in prison if I will survive or not.
5.
They think getting any exterior help would be humiliating if they see what is happening in the prison.
6.
In general people like to prove themselves have power. And the power is within the violence which was creating by the system as it was said in the video.
7.
the reality is that guards are drawn to abuse the prisoners because they got bored and there is nothing to do therefore they try to have some “entertainment” by torturing the prisoners.
8.
Identity is just a system set up by humans to give themselves an existence in their own unique way, therefore it could not be overtaken by the others with new identities.
9.
in the urban world societies kids are constantly flashed by evil-orientated subjects, so they are used to it and probably will survive because they seen it many times. As for women I am not really sure but I think they will.
10.
They would just be flooded with images from memories.
12.
It is not so ethical but it is a very important study as it shows how evil can destroy humanity. So there is no right or wrong from the research point of view.
13.
I think they are similar because they are trying to observe how far can people endure with the evil roots and I would not say if it will be better or not because it has happened and there is nothing we can do but not to repeat the same thing again.
14.
I would the experiment for about 3 months without any giving-up thoughts in my mind as I go along with my experiment. I am curious about what is the bottom line for the amount of evilness that has generated and delivered either physically or mentally to the receiver.
16.
Less dangerous prisoners can stay at house and put tracer on them. So we spend less money to maintain the prison
I attended anti discrimination workshop in 2007 where we ware doing a lot of role-paying games. One of them was design that one group had power and the second group had much lower status. Everybody knew that it's is just exercise but still it cosed much of negative emotions as some people ware carried away and started acting very bossy and cruel. This is why I agree with Zimbardos' point of view on peoples behavior.
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