If I remember correctly the first time I heard about the Stanford Prison experiment was when I was a freshman at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. I was taking an Introduction to Psychology class my first semester, and we studied this experiment for a little while along with the Milgram one. From what I remember we never talked about this experiment within the contexts of race, but instead about how it relates to human behavior.
What I found really interesting was that the documentary mentioned that this experiment was conducted with a backdrop of Civil Rights activism, and then during the experiment the prisoners (like these activists) were rebelling against the notion of being anonymous. In the same way as the privileged people, the guards were trying to keep the rebellion (or prison liberation) down in order to quench any sort of community the prisoners were trying to build for themselves. I think Dave Eshleman, one of the experiment guards, summed up the findings of the experiment the best when he said “the study showed that power corrupts and how difficult it is for people who are the victims of abuse to stand up and defend themselves”.
Another thing I found really interesting was that none of the guards did anything to stop that one guard (I think his nickname was John Wayne) when he started to get out of control with the prisoners. There was even that one guard who would rather leave and get food for the participants instead of be in the “prison” since he did not want to face the problem. Professor Philip Zimbardo, the prison superintendent and the psychologist who was running the experiment, said that “nobody has the right, the power, the privilege to do that to other people”, but in order to stop these things from happening to people we all have to realize that if we are not stopping it from happening we are helping it instead.
What you said is so true. That power corrupts and its difficult for the victims of the abuse to stand up and defend themselves. But what really intrigues me is how the prisoners not only did they give up their liberty but also were trying to put their own down. And sometimes I think that in society that's what we do when we see our own suffering and even putting us down.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, yeah that is also really interesting - that minority groups or people NOT in power try to put people in the same group down. Do you think they do that because they think they will become apart of the other group? Or that will somehow elevate their status?
ReplyDeleteI found the professors comment's troubling because from my point of view it seemed while he was playing the superintendent that he got some kind of enjoyment or satisfaction of having that power over the prisoners and the guards. There absolutely should have been another authority figure involved in this experiment.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. I think what David Eshelam was right when he said power corrupts people. It really does amaze me how easily people can change just to have some sort of power. I also think its weird how people will turn a blind eye to the corrupt people just so they dont have to get involved. Instead of being passive, sometimes its better to stand up to the corrupt or else we wont get anywhere
ReplyDelete@mmskler23: I think somewhere during the documentary that professor realized that there should have been another figure involved since his role as both professor and superintendent was compromised and complicated.
ReplyDelete@Phebs: Yeah, power really does corrupt people as we clearly saw in some of those new clips that Professor Joelle Ruby Ryan gave us to watch of corrupt police.
@Heather hmmm...I think that putting people down makes them think that it's elevating their status but in reality it's just an illusion. They feel that they are being oppressed but they know they can't rebel against the people with power so they sometimes even oppress their own just to feel better about themselves.
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