Stanford prison experiment

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The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) was a social psychology experiment that attempted to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power, focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison officers. It was conducted at Stanford University on the days of August 14–20, 1971, by a research group led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo using college students.[1] In the study, volunteers were randomly assigned to be either “guards” or “prisoners” in a mock prison, with Zimbardo himself serving as the superintendent. Several “prisoners” left mid-experiment, and the whole experiment was abandoned after six days. Early reports on experimental results claimed that students quickly embraced their assigned roles, with some guards enforcing authoritarian measures and ultimately subjecting some prisoners to psychological torture, while many prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, by the officers’ request, actively harassed other prisoners who tried to stop it. The experiment has been described in many introductory social psychology textbooks,[2]although some have chosen to exclude it because its methodology is sometimes questioned.[3]

If you were in the study would you like to be either the prisoner or prison officers?

  • Prisoner
  • Prison Officer(guard)
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Remember which one you chose and watch it on Netflix. It really is interesting.

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Locked wards are like prison. I rather choose the deathsentence as prison.

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This experiment takes place in a hallway basically with a couple of rooms. Some people might want to be a prisoner because it would be easier. Most people in the study were students of Stanford. You get paid the same amount of money whichever you choose.

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Reminds me of Dr. Cameron’s Mk-Ultra experiments in Canada…

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I studied this in sociology thus year, and it was actually stopped short because it was so dangerous to the prisoners. Pretty interesting study.

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Did you watch the movie in the Sociology or did the teacher just explain everything?

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Yeah the experiment was very disturbing.

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What type of prison guard would you be?

  • Gung ho jerk
  • Slightly mean
  • Just let others do everything
  • Help the prisoners

0 voters

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We saw part if the movie but not the whole thing.

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It would have been funny if at the end of the study they said all the prisoners were guards and all the guards were prisoners. That would have been funny. It wouldn’t last one day.

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Is it true that prisoners develop there own religion?

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I don’t think it was funny at all. The prison experiment ended badly IIRC. People got messed up. It did provide a lot of value to science though.

A lot of ■■■■■■ up ■■■■ goes on that we don’t know about like Mk-Ultra. Every therapist I’ve talked to has no clue what it is or they are lying about it. I thought they would be taught this in an ethics class or something. It’s pretty common knowledge at least to me.

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At the end of the movie it made a point of saying none of the prisoners had serious damage. I’m not exactly sure what MK Ultra is.

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Yes, this experiment always reminds me of my time in locked ward, with the staff as prison guards and the patients as prisoners.

I genuinely fail to see a ward as anything other than a very nasty prison. I think it encourages patients to become passive, subdued and submissive and encourages nurses and doctors to abuse their power.

I might as well prefer death over life in prison and prison over locked ward. I think you have more rights and are treated more respectfully in prison (in my country) than in the psych hospital. An example would be that putting more than 1 prisoner in a cell gave big protest while more than 1 patient in a cell never did.

But then again, I only ever visited a prison and was never an inmate, so I dont truly know.

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I saw a pdoc for a short bit that graduated from Stanford in the early 70s,

I always wanted to ask him if he was part of the experiment.

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Yeah you do live in Northern California right, @anon54386108. I bet the prisoners were upset for a good amount of time, then they made a movie so it’s pretty cool

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The Experiment, with Adrian Brody and Forest Whitaker. Amazing telling of a horrible thing.

I’d love to think I would be the guard to help people, but in reality I’d probably be a prisoner who riots

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Yeah,

I live in Northern California.

Lots of Sanford graduates around here.

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Northern California here too, my Pdoc is from Stanford

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I might watch that movie one of these days @Ooorgle

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