Despite Zimbardo’s Ethical Difficulties
Despite Zimbardo’s well-meaning aims to investigate how easily people adapt their behavior to conform to societal roles, the design of the Stanford Prison Experiment raises substantial ethical difficulties. Zimbardo may have, but he could not guarantee fully informed consent for the subjects because he was unable to anticipate various eventualities throughout the experiment. For example, it is not impossible that the volunteers would have withdrawn their participation if they had been made aware of the potential for abuse. Secondly, Zimbardo’s somewhat negligent approach meant that the experiment was conducted without protecting participants from the physical and psychological harms of mistreatment and humiliation.
Question 2
The prominent psychological constructs that Zimbardo’s experiment revealed were deindividuation and learned helplessness. Deindividuation occurs when individuals become acculturated to the norms of their social group to such extents that they lose their sense of personal identity and responsibility (Zimbardo, 2017). This concept was demonstrated when the participants gradually believed the pseudo-reality of the prison setup. On the other hand, learned helplessness occurs when people condition themselves to accept their adverse situations (Zimbardo, 2017). The prisoners who allowed maltreatment from the guards exemplified this phenomenon. Arguably, Zimbardo would probably not have learned the same information had he conducted the study differently. It was indeed critical to the experiment that guards and prisoners were instructed to demonstrate behavior typical of their respective prescribed roles.
Question 3
In psychological discourse, conformity relates to the tendency of individuals to adapt their behavior to the unspoken rules or conduct of their social groups (Kulig, Pratt, and Cullen, 2017). Conformity was apparent during the Stanford Prison experiment, especially among the guards. For instance, Zimbardo noted that the guards consistently displayed sadistic behavior despite the fact that none of them had demonstrated such before the study. Their sudden change is attributable to the “prison” social environment. Similarly, the power of the social environment was a significant enabler of the events during the experiment. The power structure was such that it was rigid and confrontational since the guards had ultimate control over the prisoners. The different dressing codes between the guards and prisoners only widened the power distance by isolating both parties from one another (Zimbardo, 2016).
References
Kulig, T. C., Pratt, T. C., & Cullen, F. T. (2017). Revisiting the Stanford prison experiment: A case study in organized skepticism. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 28(1), 74-111.
Zambardo, P. (2017). Home. Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved 20 December 2017, from http://www.prisonexp.org/
Zimbardo, P. (2016). Revisiting the Stanford prison experiment: A lesson in the power of situation. Perspectives on Contemporary Issues, 309.
