Post #5: Social Experiments & Theories

I’ve chosen to discuss the Dr. Zimbardo's Prison Experiment. This experiment took place in 1973 and was lead by Zimbardo at the University of Yale. The point of the experiment was to see how people adapt to becoming prisoners and guards in a prison like situation. Zimbardo wanted to see if the aggressive behavior of the guards was sadistic or happened due to the environment of the prison. Students at Yale volunteered their selves to be either guards or prisoners. 21 students were chosen, and were screened psychological normal. Then the guards were assigned and started randomly asserting the prisoners, no violence was permitted but they were treated as every other criminal was. The prisoners were then brought to a jail like setting. The prisoners were only referred to by numbers, not by there names, and they had chains around their ankles. Within hours of the experiment starting some of the guards were harassing the prisoners. The prisoners were basically dehumanized. On the sixth night of the experiment Zimbardo quit the experiment as everyone was getting mentally and physically damaged, some people even started going into depression.

I think that this experiment relates a lot to the Book of Negros. The book its self was not an experiment but the people in the book went through very similar situations. I think that the best compassion would be when their on the slave ship going from Africa to South Carolina. Every one on the ship slowly starts to lose faith and hope, and they all kind of went a little insane. Take Fomba for example being stuck on the ship affected him so much that he lost his ability to talk and communicate with others. I also think that in the experiment how the prisoners are referred to as numbers and not by the name is very similar to the book as on the ship everyone starts yelling their names and where they are from because they started to loose their identity. I also think there a little similarities between the two, like in both cases they had chains around their ankles.

Haney, C., Banks, W.C. & Zimbardo, P.G. (1973) A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Review, 30, 4-17.