Phillip Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment

Introduction

The Stanford experience (Lucifer effect) is a study of experimental psychology conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971 on the effects of prison conditions. It was created with students playing the roles of guards and prisoners prison (exp.sbc.edu, 2012).

Discussion

It aimed to study the behavior of ordinary people in such a context and effect was to show that this was the situation rather than the personalities of the participants was the cause of behavior sometimes opposite values professed by the participants before the start of the study. The 18 subjects were selected for their stability and maturity, and their respective roles as guards or prisoners had been assigned randomly ostensibly. In other words, each participant knew that the assignment of roles was that just a coincidence and not of any physical or psychological predispositions. A guard could very well be a prisoner, and vice versa (Cullen & Lero, 2008).

Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to the roles they had been assigned, exceeding the limits of what was expected and actually lead to dangerous situations and psychologically damaging(exp.sbc.edu, 2012).

Despite the deteriorating conditions and loss of control of the experiment, only one person (Christina Maslach) among the fifty direct and indirect participants of the study opposed the continuation of the experiment on moral grounds. It is through this that Professor Zimbardo became aware of the situation and stopped the experiment after six days, instead of the originally scheduled two weeks (Bruzzi, 2007).

The director of this experimental research was very qualified and experienced. They know that how to direct this research and guide to volunteer because it is very difficult to adopted prisoner behavior.

Volunteer worked

Participants of this experimental research was did very good and they were looking so original .Researcher of this video did proper study and observed these volunteer ...