Curiosity about the psychology of good people in bad places and the factors that cause prison guards to often take brutal actions against inmates became the basis for Professor Philip G. Zimbardo to conduct the Stanford Prison Experiment, which was carried out August 15–21, 1971, in the basement of Jordan Hall.
The experiment certainly produced some quite astonishing findings, which at first many people questioned but were finally answered. Lots of interesting and dramatic things were found in this prison life simulation. Here’s everything you need to know!
What Was the Conclusion of the Stanford Prison Experiment?
After the Stanford Prison Experiment was stopped following the prisoner’s emotional disorder and the guards’ excessive acts of aggression, there were many findings, but the most important was simply this:
- Prison life simulation became extremely realistic for both prisoners and prison guards.
- The prisoners were emotionally disturbed enough that they did not realize that this was just a simulation and not real.
- The prison guards were also unaware of what they were doing toward the prisoners. Aggression and violence were not characteristics of their personalities; rather, what they did was associated with their responsibility and authority.
Zimbardo and his colleagues revealed that people would easily adapt to the social roles that they were expected to play, in particular if the roles were as strongly stereotyped as prison guards.
Prison guards act aggressively and brutally toward prisoners for a reason, which is the authority factor. The experiment revealed that the prison guards began to act in ways they might not usually behave in their normal lives.
The point is that the environment of the “prison” is a crucial factor that can lead to the guards’ brutality. Well, the Stanford Prison Experiment found that brutality among prison guards was due to the “situational factor” (the environment that forces them to behave aggressively) rather than the “dispositional factor” (the sadistic personality of a prison guard).
At the end of the experiment, Zimbardo submitted that two processes could explain the prisoner’s final submission:
1. Deindividuation
It actually describes the participants’ behavior, especially the prison guards. This is a circumstance when an individual becomes so immersed in the norms of the group that they lose their sense of identity and personal responsibility.
In this case, the prison guards may have been sadistic since they did not feel what happened was associated with their responsibility—it was called the norm of a group. They might also lose their sense of personal identity due to the uniform they wore.
2. Learned helplessness
It might explain the submission of the prisoners to the prison guards. Well, the prisoners would know that whatever they did had little effect on what happened to them. In the prison life simulation, the unpredictable decisions of the prison guards led the prisoners not to respond to them.
What Was Found in the Stanford Prison Experiment?
To evaluate how realistic the prison situation was, Professor Zimbardo invited a Catholic priest, Christina Maslach, Ph.D., who had been a prison chaplain. The priest interviewed each prisoner by calling their prisoner ID number, not their name.
When the priest Maslach witnessed the prisoners being abused by the prison guards, she became enraged. Furthermore, the priest’s visit blurred the line between reality and role-playing. Well, it added to the uncertainty that the prisoners and the prison guards felt about where their roles ended and their personal identities began.
Zimbardo found that most of the participants felt involved and committed, and the experiment was real for them. A participant who played as a prison guard felt shocked after he asked the prisoners to clean the toilet out with their bare hands. Another prison guard stated that acting authoritatively was fun and that the power could be a great pleasure.
It was found that most of the prison guards found it hard to believe what they had done toward the prisoners was so brutal. They also said that they had not known this side of them existed or that they could do it.
Read also: The Situation Became Out of Control
The prisoners could not believe that they had acted in a cowering, submissive, and dependent manner toward the authority they had. Normally, some people claim to be assertive types.
When Zimbardo asked about the prison guards, the participants described the usual three stereotypes that they found:
- Some guards were good but did few favors for the prisoners.
- Some guards were tough but fair, and they never punished them.
- Some guards were cruel, arbitrary, and inventive in their methods of humiliating prisoners.
Well, the terms of reinforcement were a further explanation for the participants’ behavior. The guards’ increased aggression and abuse could be attributed to positive reinforcement received both from fellow guards and intrinsically in terms of how good they felt they had so much power.
Likewise, the prisoners could also learn through negative reinforcement that if they kept their heads down and conducted themselves as they were told, they could avoid further unpleasant experiences.
A bookworm and researcher especially related to law and citizenship education. I spend time every day in front of the internet and the campus library.
