The Stanford Experiment

Some psychologists decided to do an experiment with the participation of students from the University of Stanford. This experiment was carried out in the prison of Stanford University who was located in the basement of the psychology building. The experiment in the psychology of imprisonment occurred in the late seventies, in order to see what happen to good people when they deal with a bad situation, which in this case is the prison. The volunteers were examined to verify that they were physically and mentally healthy, and then randomly selected who would play the role of prisoners and guards.

This whole process made it look very realistic, the future prisoners were arrested in their own homes and then took them through a process, like everything was real. The results of this experiment were surprising and caused great controversy in the world of psychology. Fantasy became reality, as the results of many changes in their behavior. Young good college guys became brutal guards, healthy boys got sick and active boys became passive prisoners, almost like zombies. Many of them had to be released because of the extreme situations they were in but they never said that wanted to voluntarily leave the experiment because they were so catch up in that fantasy. They abandoned the experiment in six days when it supposed to last two weeks.

This experiment gave so much to talk about, because many psychologists believed that this study broke the ethical principles of psychology and expressed that the experiment should never happened. Is quite odd because the participates otherwise expressed that they were fascinated by the results, because they could not believe that they were able to do the things that they did, now they know their bad side.  I believe that despite of the problems with the professional ethics that a psychologist should have, the experiment was very good and was very successful, as it explained things that were unknown and participants learned about this experience. I understand that there are two important points in here: when you live a fantasy role you may end up believing it and there are parts of us that we not know about, that are hidden unless we see our self in some sort of extreme situation.