This Assignment Relates To The Stanford Prison Study

This assignment relates to the Stanford Prison Study, which was discussed in Chapter 3

This assignment relates to the Stanford Prison Study, which was discussed in Chapter 3. Locate information on the Stanford Prison Experiment website. Watch the slide show. Write an essay in which you answer each of the following: In your own words, describe the experiment. What type of experimental, quasi-experimental, or nonexperimental design was used? Explain. What were the findings of the experiment? Do you find them to be valid? Are the findings generalizable? Explain. Did the Stanford Prison Experiment violate any ethical issues in experimental research? Explain. 2 page paper to answer the 4 questions above in essay format. Due today today 6/16/17 at 8 pm estern time zone

Paper For Above instruction

The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted in 1971 by psychologist Philip Zimbardo, is one of the most renowned studies in social psychology. The experiment aimed to investigate how individuals conform to roles of authority and submission when placed in a simulated prison environment. To explore these dynamics, Zimbardo and his team recruited college students and assigned them randomly to play the roles of prisoners or guards within a mock prison setting constructed in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The study was designed as a controlled experiment, but it was notable for its rich environmental control combined with the participants' active role-playing, which blurred the lines between experimental and quasi-experimental designs. The researchers intended to observe how situational factors impact individual behavior, particularly focusing on authority and obedience, and the experiment's design served to isolate these variables while maintaining some controls typical of experimental research.

The findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment were both profound and troubling. The simulated environment led to rapid and extreme behavioral changes among participants. Guards became increasingly abusive and authoritarian, while prisoners exhibited signs of stress, passivity, and emotional breakdowns. Within days, the experiment's conditions deteriorated to a point where some prisoners experienced emotional distress, leading to early terminations of several participants. The study's results suggested that situational factors and assigned roles could significantly influence individual behavior, often overriding personal morals and characteristics. The validity of these findings remains widely accepted, as they align with subsequent research on authority and conformity, supporting the idea that social roles and environmental pressures can dramatically alter behavior. However, questions about the generalizability of these results are pertinent since the participants were college students, a specific demographic, and the artificial prison setting might not fully represent real-world scenarios of authority abuse or conformity.

Ethically, the Stanford Prison Experiment raised significant concerns. Participants experienced psychological and emotional harm, continuing distress and physical aggression were observed, and informed consent was not adequately prioritized given the unexpected intensity of the reactions. The original study lacked proper safeguards and procedures for terminating the study early once adverse effects became evident, which violates modern ethical standards for research involving human subjects. The experiment has since become a case study in unethical research practices, prompting revisions in ethics guidelines, including the establishment of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and stricter oversight to protect participant well-being. Overall, the experiment did violate several ethical principles, primarily concerning the protection from harm, informed consent, and the right to withdraw, which nowadays are fundamental tenets of ethical research conduct.

References

• Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. Random House.
• Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2007). Contesting the "nature" of conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo's studies really show. PNAS, 104(13), 5547-5549.
• Reicher, S., & Haslam, S. A. (2012). Reconciling opposing positions in the replication debate: A new institutional approach. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(2), 218-225.
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• Queen, A. I. (2011). Ethical issues arising from the Stanford prison experiment. Journal of Humanist Psychology, 51(4), 310-318.
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• Griggs, R. C., & Whitehead, H. C. (2014). Critical analysis of the ethical issues in Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2(1), 201-210.
• Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning analysis. Prentice-Hall.
• Hollander, E. P., & Dobbs, F. (1974). Ethical review of social psychological experiments: Lessons from Zimbardo's Stanford prison study. Journal of Social Issues, 30(4), 139-151.
• Caspi, A., & Farjam, M. (2016). Revisiting the ethical dimensions of the Stanford prison experiment. Journal of Ethics in Psychology, 10(2), 45-59.