A. IDENTIFICATION AND EVALUATION OF SOURCES
This investigation will examine the research question “How successful was the Stanford Experiment in understanding the effects of labels, roles, and social expectations in a prison environment in 1971”. The Stanford Experiment set out to examine the psychological effects of authority and powerlessness in a prison environment. This investigation will explore the effects of labels, roles, and social expectations of a prison experiment in 1971 through a variety of sources ranging from a documentary, books, and websites because these sources give me a closer insight.
Source 1
A documentary called “The Quiet Rage: The Stanford Experiment” published in 1992, directed by Ken Musen and written by Philip Zimbardo himself. This is an academic documentary that gives insight and is relevant to this question as it develops a deeper meaning to The Stanford Experiment. The documentary stimulate discussion and critical thinking, the film features archival footage, flashbacks, and post-experiment interviews with the prisoners and guards. A value of the origin is that it was directed by a graduate of Stanford University (BA), Ken has over 25 years experience creating documentaries and commercials. The origin is very valuable because the individuals that created the film, has experience and can connect to the experiment. A value of the purpose is its objective to stimulate critical thinking and to have us think about how the Stanford Experiment affects the prison world and different perspectives. A value of the content is it provides real life clips of individual footage, post-experiment interviews with the prisoners and guards, and comparisons with real prisons. Having footage of interviews with the prisoners and guards provide us with eyewitness experiences and we can use this as evidence, making the report more credible. A limitation of the origin is that both the director and writer attended Stanford University, possibly creating a bond with that school, and therefore having a biased opinion about it to save the reputation of the school. The limitation of the purpose was that the experience only focused on how it would affect prison. The whole documentary focused on giving viewers a closer view at how it was like in the prison, not giving viewers an insight on how this can affect the world as a whole. A limitation of the content is that the main evidence used is from prisoners, guards, and the professor that conducted the experiment, it shows no evidence of how people who weren’t involved in the experience felt about it at the time that it was happening.
Source 2
The book, The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo is relevant as it provides the historian perspectives and effects of the Stanford experiment. The value of the origin is that it comes from a historian that has investigated and experienced the experiment himself. Philip Zimbardo is an expert in the subject and can provide evidence that is reliable. The book was published in 2007 and therefore has the benefits of hindsight. A value of the purpose is that it raises a lot of fundamental questions that encourages the historian to dig more and become more intrigued. A value of the content is that it draws examples from history to add onto his research. In the book, Zimbardo goes through details on how group dynamics and situational forces can work in concert to make monsters out of women and men. A limit of the origin is that it could be biased because of who wrote the book, which is Zimbardo himself. A limit of the purpose is that there is personal involvement in the case of study. Zimardo connects to it personally and this could lead to omissions, untruths, and justifications for actions.
B. INVESTIGATION
Introduction:
Questions arise and violence between the prisoners and guards on Stanford University during the Stanford Experiment intensified in 1971 and it became known as the dramatic stimulation of prison life. A shocking event occurred on Aug 14, 1971 to Aug 20, 1971 and what was supposed to be a two week experiment quickly turned around and became a 6 day experiment. More than 70 people responded to the ad, 24 students were chosen: 12 to role play prisoner's, and 12 to role play guards. These students had no record prior to the experiment of criminal arrests, medical conditions, or psychological disorders. The stanford experiment is significant because the historian can understand the development of norms and the effects of roles, labels, and social expectations in a simulated prison environment. The experiment had a huge impact on the way we view prisons and how guards and prisoners interact. The stanford experiment was successful in understanding the effects of labels, roles, and social expectations in a prison environment in 1971.
Body/Analysis:
The Stanford Experiment can be quite a shock to people that have not heard about it before. The first day that the experiment was commenced was on August 14, 1971. Professor Zimbardo, the professor that was in charge of it created situations to see how individual would react. Zimbardo then used this data to study the effects of labels. How does ideology, power, and hierarchy work? Is the obedience to authority natural or does it depend on the situation? The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil explores this idea, providing perspectives on the relationships between “Individual Resistance” and “Following orders from, authority”. The book provides the study of the changes in human nature during the simulated experiment that Professor Philip Zimbardo led.
Subtopic: Labels:
The experiment is quite popular in the field of Social Psychology, it's a classic study and it was funded by the Us Office of Naval Research. It was designed to study if when individuals were placed within particular social contexts, would they perform evil acts even if they were a good person? Since there were 24 participants, 12 were labeled as prisoner and 12 were labeled as guards. The guards were in power, they were allowed to do what actual guards were supposed to do. Zimbardo encouraged the guards to think and put themselves inside the shoes of an actual guard at a real prison. He made it straightforward that the prisoners could not be physically harmed and that they should try their best to create an atmosphere that would make the prisoners feel “powerless”. These labels consumed the guards and caused them to act out. Taking their roles too far resulted in various cruel activities such as taunting, stripping prisoners naked, and forcing them to use plastic buckets as toilets. The Stanford Experiment successfully shows how labels are effective in a prison environment.
Subtopic: Roles:
The participants in the research study has internalized their assigned roles way beyond what Zimbardo expected. Before and during the experiment, the guards had no prior training besides from a brief orientation explaining to them how they were to refrain from physical abuse. This quickly took a toll when the guards started to act out, then subjected the prisoners to physical and psychological abuse. Due to this, the prisoner's started to act out out of madness to the other prisoners. Zimbardo, then got too consumed by the roles, but as the superintendent he did not discontinue the abuse, he simply allowed it to happen. The effect of these roles that are shown in the Stanford Experiment shows that individuals in everyday situations are driven to do harm to others seeing that they hold a higher position than others even though they were told from the beginning not to do so.
Subtopic 3: Social Expectation:
Social expectation can vary depending on where you are, and it has it own set of expectations where there’s a “proper” way to act. As we can see in Quiet Rage: The Documentary, social experiments play a crucial part in understanding why the guards acted out the way they did. It only took one guard to set the example, Dave Eshelman, the prison’s most abusive guard started off the experiment with his own, thinking to himself “how far can I push these things and how much abuse will these people take before they say, ‘knock it off?’” He was quickly amazed to realize that none of the other guards stopped him, but instead they joined. It doesn’t take much for a social expectation to come in play. The Stanford Prison Experiment displays how guards are expected to act in a prison environment and it also shows how easy it is to “make” an expectation.
How successful was the Stanford Experiment in understanding the effects of labels, roles, and social expectations in a prison environment in 1971.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, professor Philip Zimbardo was successful in exploring the effects of labels, roles, and social expectations of a prison experiment in 1971. There is evidence that when someone is given a higher role, they get way too over their heads, allowing them to act out and go beyond expectations. Although The Stanford Experiment showed horrible results in the way that prisoners were treated, it also showed evidence of how successful the experiment was in exploring the effects of roles, labels, and social expectations of a prison experiment.
C.REFLECTION
During my investigation, my historical research methods were to search up keywords that highlighted the key topics of my topic. The limitations of this method is that many sources pop up, but most of them aren’t reliable. This is a limit because it takes a lot of time for me to search through all of the sources to make sure that they are reliable and informative. I determined the truth to my question when there are different perspectives by considering all of the facts, and putting them with all of the perspectives. I saw that many of the perspectives had the same idea. Realizing that many individuals had the same experience, i came to the conclusion that the experiment was successful. I determined when I had enough sources to answer my question and address multiple perspectives when I asked myself the question and I was able to answer it. I also realized it when I kept reading the same perspectives over and over, showing me that this is a reliable answer. The perspective that is dominant in available sources is a guard’s perspective, and perspectives of a prisoner are very limited. I think this is because guards didn’t go through as much as the prisoners did. Scared, ashamed, and embarrassed of what happened to them in prison is crucial thing to them and this could be a barrier between them and sharing their story. I determined that my topic is historically significant when I looked at our prison today. I compared the experiment to the prison and I noticed that they are both different, but similar in their own ways. I came up with the conclusion that guards today act less aggressive after hearing about the Stanford Experiment. I think that it is not possible to describe historical events in an unbiased way because there will always be a small or big perk about the event that you are biased about.