The study was intended to determine whether interactions between prisoners and guards in American prisons were caused by situational or dispositional factors. Situational referred to the environment of the prison, and dispositional referred to the psychological characteristics of inmates and guards. Before the study took place, the participants displayed characteristics that were deemed normal in comparison to aggressive tendencies, anti-social behaviors, and other qualities that would predetermine certain behaviors. The participants were chosen to play either the role of a guard or prisoner. The experiment showed that participants adopted these roles, and went beyond the expectations that the researchers had anticipated. "In less than one week their behavior in this simulated prison could be characterized as pathological and anti-social. The negative, anti-social reactions observed were not the product of an environment created by combining a collection of deviant personalities, but rather, the result of an intrinsically pathological situation which could distort and rechannel the behavior of essentially normal individuals." (Zimbardo). The study supports the theory that situational factors in a prison setting can influence unfavorable behavior interaction between guards and prisoners in this setting. "The profound psychological effects we observed under the relatively minimal prison-like conditions which existed in our mock prison make the result even more significant and forces us to wonder about the devastating impact of chronic incarceration in real prisons." (Zimbardo).
There are some explanations as to why the participants acted like they did, such as deindividualization, learned helplessness, and conformity. Deindividualization is a state when one becomes so immersed in the norms of the group that one loses their sense of individual identity and personal responsibility. This referred to the sadistic and controlling actions that were attributed to most of the guards participating. The majority of the group acted a certain way, creating the need for the others to conform. Learned helplessness, in this case, pertained to the actions of the prisoners. Any action that was taken by a prisoner had little effect on what happened to them, and eventually they learned that they were helpless to the outcome of the situation. "In the mock prison, the unpredictable decisions of the guards led the prisoners to give up responding." (McLeod).
The study also supported other theories that involve social psychology. "Thus we have another instance in support of Mischel's social learning analysis of the power of situational variables to shape complex social behavior." (Zimbardo). Mischel's theory suggested that personality and behaviors are shaped through our biology and the environment. More information on this theory can be found in "Toward a Cogntive Social Learning Reconceptualization of Personality". "Our results are also congruent with those of Milgram who most convincingly demonstrated the proposition that evil acts are not necessarily the deeds of evil men, but may be attributable to the operation of powerful social forces." (Zimbardo). Milgram's Theory was about the relationship between behavior and social situations. More information on the theory can by found in " Some Conditions of Obedience and Disobedience to Authority".
This study provided crucial information that helped to support theories that are still studied today. It was a study that would not be allowed to have been done today due to ethical issues, but the knowledge gained from it outweighed the possible detrimental outcomes. The participants that were involved in the study were subject to harmful psychological trauma, but none of them sustained any long-term effects. To this day, this famous experiment is being studied by individuals in the psychological community, and the information is still used to examine many social psychological situations.
References:
Breil, Jeff. Plous, Scott. Jensenius, David. "Prisonexp.org." Stanford Prison Experiment. Social
Psychology Network, 2015. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.
McLeod, Saul. "Stanford Prison Experiment." Simply Psychology. N.p., 24 Sept. 2016. Web. 12 Oct.
2016.
Banks, Curtis. Haney, Craig. Zimbardo, Philip. "International Journal of Criminology and Penology." Intropersonal Dynamics in Simulated Prison. (1973) 69-97. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.
Mischel, Walter. "Toward a cognitive social learning reconceptualization of personality." Psychological
review 80.4 (1973): 252.
Milgram, Stanley. "Some conditions of obedience and disobedience to authority." Human relations 18.1
(1965): 57-76.
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