Stanford Prison Experiment Essay

Stanford Prison Experiment

The roles we take on in our everyday lives are dictated by several factors. Whether it's the role of mother, son, student, cashier, accountant, boyfriend, wife, or teacher, the roles that make up our identities are varied and we slip into and out of them without any conscious thought. These roles are adopted by us based on expectations and assumptions prescribed to us by ourselves and others. The extent to which we take on a role indicates how thoroughly this component of our experience has been integrated into out identities.

The Stanford Experiment sought to explore exactly how social roles are assumed and executed among groups of people. The context for this study was a simulated prison environment set-up in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford. Male student volunteers were randomly assigned to be either a "prisoner" or a "guard." The researchers then observed how the two groups assumed these roles and incorporated them into their identities.The "prisoners" group in the study were all stripped of their clothing, given a smock to wear with no underclothes, assigned a number to identify them, and wore a stocking over their head. These measures were all used to take away any individualistic qualities among the group, so there was a sense of anonymity. The "guards" group was given an all khaki uniform to wear, given a billy-club, and wore reflective sunglasses that prevented prisoners from seeing their eyes. This also had the effect of making the guards anonymous without any unique of individual characteristics. However, the difference between the attire of the prisoners and the guards was that the uniform for the prisoners was intended to promote a sense of degradation and humiliation, while the uniform of the guards promoted authoritativeness.

The changes observed in the participants in the study were astounding. Both the prisoners….....