http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDrecm5tyl0
The Stanford Prison Study shows that your role defines your behavior. In 1971, Psychologist Philip Zimbardo along with some of his colleagues came up with the idea to set up an experiment that placed ordinary people to become a prisoner or prison guard. The purpose of this experiment was to investigate peoples reaction to the roles they are put in.
The researchers set up a fake prison in the basement of the Stanford University's psychology building and picked out 24 undergraduate students to play the roles of prisoners and prison guards. The undergraduates agreed to participate for the two week program for $15 a day. The experiment did not make the two week mark, it had to be stopped due to what the volunteers was experincing, the guards started to become abusive, hostile even and the prisoners displayed signs of submission to the guards to get on their good side, due to this the prisoners started to suffer from stress,anxiety,depression and passive aggression. Some prisoners even started to cry. The experiment showed that the ''power role'' was taking advantage of, it also showed how that specific ''power role'' can drastically affect people in a way that they have no choice to submit.
Hi Charen
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your statement "that your role defines your behavior". In my blog I was trying to come across that same idea. The college students knew that what they were doing was fictional but yet they became the person they were assigned to. They forgot what was the real purpose of the experiment
I find what you wrote very interesting. I liked the bit of playing a role can define who you are as a person because it plays about in the mind.
ReplyDeleteYou are definitely right when you say your role defines your behavior because if the guard didn't have the right to do whatever to the prisoners they wouldn't have been so harsh to the prisoner . You gave a lot of details in this assignment
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said, especially how people focus on playing a role. I couldn't believe how the prisoners were just obeyed everything without questions.
ReplyDelete