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Please delete all red type prior to submission and fill in with your original information. This Assignment should be written adhering to the guidelines of Standard American English. This means that your thoughts should be well-organized, logical, and unified as well as original with the viewpoint and purpose clearly established and sustained. Standard American English guidelines also include the use of correct grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. All writing should be in APA Formatting and Citation style.

See this video from the Writing Center to help you meet APA guidelines: Perspectives and Theories in Psychology

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Kaplan University

PS124 - Unit 5 Assignment

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After watching the videos, select one video and complete the following template using complete sentences and paragraphs. Your Assignment should be 2-4 pages, not including the Cover and Reference pages. Begin your writing with an introductory paragraph letting your reader know what main points you will be covering and providing a thesis statement (your main argument). Conclude it with a summary paragraph restating your thesis and summarizing your main points.

Assignment Tasks

  1. Identify the study (video) you selected.
  2. Summarize the results of this study and what implications it has with regards to human behavior and mental processes that you’ve learned about in Units 4-5.
  3. Discuss what is meant by the term states of consciousness and apply it to your research study, considering whether it impacted the behavior or mental processes of the subjects involved.
  4. Consider whether or not you think this research could explain the development of psychological disorders? Explain your reasoning using reference to the study and the disorder(s).
  5. Theories lead to hypotheses, which lead to research. Explain which theory you think may have been the influence for the research study that you chose. (For example: psychodynamic, humanistic, social cognitive, behaviorism, or trait theory) Explain your reasoning using reference to the study and the theory.

Review the Assignment Rubric for more information. For references, include credible sources following APA style, such as journal articles, books, and credible videos.

Paper For Above instruction

The selected study for this assignment is the Stanford Prison Experiment, a widely recognized psychological study conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971. This study explored how individuals conform to roles within a simulated prison environment, revealing significant insights into human behavior, authority, and conformity. The experiment involved college students randomly assigned to be guards or prisoners, which resulted in unexpected and extreme behaviors. The following analysis elaborates on the findings, their psychological implications, and the potential influence of underlying theories.

The Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrated that situational factors and assigned roles could significantly influence individual behavior. The guards, initially instructed to act professionally, quickly adopted authoritarian and abusive behaviors, while prisoners exhibited signs of stress, helplessness, and compliance. The study was terminated prematurely after only six days due to the severity of the participants' behaviors. These results suggest that under certain conditions, ordinary individuals can engage in harmful behaviors when influenced by perceived authority and deindividuation, emphasizing the powerful impact of environmental and social factors on mental processes.

Regarding states of consciousness, this concept refers to the different levels of awareness individuals experience, including waking, sleeping, and altered states induced by substances or psychological conditions. In the context of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the participants’ mental states shifted dramatically from their baseline consciousness to altered states characterized by compliance, deindividuation, and emotional distress. These changes impacted their perception of reality, moral judgment, and impulse control, demonstrating how situational factors can induce altered states of consciousness that influence behavior and cognition.

Considering the potential link between this research and psychological disorders, the experiment highlights how environmental stressors and role-playing can produce symptoms akin to trauma-related disorders like Acute Stress Disorder or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). While the study itself did not diagnose disorders, the extreme emotional and psychological distress experienced by participants mirrors symptoms observed in trauma victims. This suggests that exposure to highly stressful environments or authoritative abuse could contribute to the development of disorders characterized by anxiety, depression, or dissociative states. Therefore, understanding situational influences on mental health can inform interventions and preventative measures in clinical settings.

Theories such as social influence theory and conformity theory likely influenced Zimbardo's research. The experiment’s emphasis on obedience to authority and role conformity aligns with the principles of social psychology, which suggest that individuals are susceptible to situational forces and social roles. The theory of normative social influence posits that individuals conform to group norms to be accepted, which was evident as participants adopted behaviors consistent with their assigned roles. Additionally, deindividuation theory explains how anonymity within the simulated prison reduced personal accountability, fostering aggressive behaviors. These theoretical frameworks provided a conceptual basis for understanding how situational pressures could override personal morals, leading to extreme behaviors observed in the study.

References

  • Haney, C., Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P. (1973). The past and future of prison research: The Utah Prison Experiment. American Psychologist, 28(5), 553–565.
  • Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. Random House.
  • Reicher, S., & Haslam, S. A. (2012). Contesting the "nature" of conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo's studies actually show. PLoS Biology, 10(11), e1001426.
  • Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215.
  • Myers, D. G. (2014). Exploring Psychology (8th ed.). Worth Publishers.
  • American Psychological Association. (2020). Publications manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).
  • Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2012). After psychology’s dark ages: Are there any lessons from the Stanford prison experiment? European Review of Social Psychology, 23(1), 56–96.
  • McLeod, S. (2017). The Stanford prison experiment. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/stanford-prison.html
  • Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 80(1), 1–28.
  • Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2016). Psychology and Its Ways of Knowing (11th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

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