The Stanford Prison Experiment
If freedom is the right to speak or act as one wants, would you consider yourself as “free”? The sense of freedom varies, but it intersects at one point: greed- an overwhelming desire of more. "People like to have a lot of stuff because it gives them the feeling of living forever," says American psychologist Sheldon Solomon. It’s not a feeling or sense which is gained, humankind is born with it and only has the chance to express it in some particular situations.
The Stanford Prison Experiment, also known as “Zimbardo
Experiment” was done by creating a simulated jail under the
building of Stanford University in order to study the psychology
of imprisonment. The experiment was led by the Stanford Univer-
sity Psychology Professor Phillip Zimbardo. The aim was to obser-
ve the behavior of the guards and the prisoners under tough con-
ditions and to prove that every human being may transform into
brutal monsters if desired power and freedom was given. The ex-
periment lasted 2 weeks and 24 people were involved. The volun-
teers were asked if they opted to be a guard or a prisoner and
they were set in their roles according to their choices, whether if
they wanted to be a guard or a prisoner. Professor Zimbardo co-
venanted to pay a considerable amount of money to the prisoners
because the guards were going to be atrocious and imperious to them although hitting the prisoners was “forbidden”. Zimbardo planned this social psychology experiment in depth and decided to make the guards wear dark sunglasses so that their emotions wouldn’t be noticed. He told the guardians that they were free to behave draconian and to punish the prisoners; so the internal control was in their hands. Zimbardo was just watching them from an outer place with a camera he placed in, and the guards knew he did. By the day 2, the prisoners were slightly uncomfortable, they actually intuited a gloomy atmosphere in the jail, like something disastrous was about to happen. A bunch of prisoners asserted that this role play was being taken too seriously and they demanded to quit. Even some of them had a panic attack. So, what was the issue there which made some volunteers want to quit from the first few days?
The situation was grievous, some prisoners resisted to obey the commandments and revolted. The prisoners were raving, the power and freedom resulted in truculence for the guards. A bunch of college students were now wild sadists and the prisoners were transformed into panicky slaves who are under threat and pressure. The simulation was now real, Prisoner 8612 was referred as "He has begun to act crazy, he is shouting, screaming, swearing, and having uncontrollable anger attacks,
it took us quite a while to acknowledge his psychological situation, and eventually we decided to let him go." The prisoners were sleeping with shackles and still the guards weren’t sated to authority. The freedom they took from the prisoners made them feel powerful and ruling. Nothing was a simulation anymore, Zimbardo described the circumstances as “Even in their dreams, there was no way they could escape from this prison.” Consequently, the experiment ended in 6 days (8 days early) due to the rebellions and the escape plans. With this experiment, Zimbardo concluded that every human being could be dehumanized if necessary conditions were provided and uncontrolled power was given. Additionally, the experiment demonstrated the harmful impacts of power and domination on human psychology.
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