Critique of Phillip K Zimbardo s experiment
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
In "The Standford Prison Experiment," Phillip K. Zimbardo argues about how readily we all slip into our roles, temporarily give up our identities, and allow these assigned roles and the social forces to guide, shape, and eventually control our freedom of thought and action. Zimbardo, a professor at Standford University set out to study the process by which prisoners and guards "learn" to become respective compliant and authoritarian. (347)
The mock prison set out for college male students at fifteen dollars a day to play as "guard" or "prisoner" in the basement of Standford University. "Guards" have the role to watch over their prisoners and punished them in a dehumanizing way, whereas "prisoners" will obey their orders in a humble way and could only be referred by numbers not by name. Of course this experiment is not as real as prison, but it is close enough to bring out the core perceptions in each role. Some of the harsh situations are when the guards pushed their prisoners to their fullest limit. Such as messing up a very neatly made bed or refuse to dump out the urine bucket so the prison cell would reek. Other times, guards would command prisoners to curse and vilify each others so no one will have any respect for anyone. Throughout the experiment, the guards would keep a personal diary, reflecting on how they feel toward the roles that they were placed in every situation...