Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Quiet Rage: The Stanford Experiment
To start off, quiet frankly, this video disturbed me a bit. When it began, I tried to understand the concept or goal that the professor was going to. I couldn't see why they would actually put normal people (young men to be exact) through that ordeal for so long. Even though normal prisons at that time were run in the same manner, I thought it was still wrong to put people who knowingly did nothing wrong to deserve that type of treatment. Yes, they did agree to it before the whole process began, and yes, they did get payed, but after a while it got a bit out of control. I know that i wouldn't have been able to go through the ordeal, whether it was to be the guard or the prisoner. Then another thought crossed my mind. Why was it that it was only young men in this experiment? I still have yet to answer my own question. I also realized that the student who was watching the whole process from an office with the professor was female, and she had the same opinion about it as I do. She gave the idea of ending the experiment early, stating that it was wrong to put them through it for so long. Over all, it was an interesting experiment, and even though it seemed wrong to do, it taught an important lesson.
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Totally agree with you. In a weird way it was very interesting, but i believe if it lasted two weeks as they wanted it in the beginning...it would have been a tragedy.Gender for sure had to do with it.Also we can see towards the end when "John Wayne" was interviewed that he says he is not a bad man, but it seemed he was enjoying the whole experiment. When it comes to the "prisoners", i think for some of them been students at Stanford (which is a very good school) they probably never ever would see themselves as real prisoners and that had a huge psychological impact.
ReplyDeleteps. Great Blog
I completely agree. If it went any longer than six days it would be a huge disaster that you would probably find in the history books. I was surprised that "John Wayne" admitted that he was conducting his own privaate experiments. I think the guy sitting next to him conducted himself very well, myself on the other hand would have been flipping out.
ReplyDeletei completely agree with your thoughts i also thought that in the beginning it was right to do but towards the middle it was weird punishing people who didn't deserve it. But like you said it was an important
ReplyDeleteYes, it did teach an important lesson. It help set the standards for what is considered ethical and unethical research today. If I had to predict what the outcome of the experiment would be HAD it run its full course, I would predict that all of the prisoners would have lost their will to live. I think they would have spiriled even further into deep depression. What do you guys think would have happened had they not ended the experiment early?
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