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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 4 page overview of this infamous psychological experiment. This paper explores the connotations this experiment has in terms of group dynamics. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
Page Count:
4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: AM2_PPprsnEx.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
The recent horrors that have unfolded at U.S. military prisons have finally opened the American publics eyes as to the extreme variation that exists in human
nature. The knowledge that we have been confronted with is far from new however. Psychologists have been aware for generations that even the best of people can react in
less than commendable ways under trying circumstances. That is what has occurred at Abu Graib and that is what happened thirty-five years ago in a now-infamous experiment conducted in
1971 at Stanford University by Psychologist Philip K. Zimbardo. In "The Stanford Prison Experiment" students were rounded up off the Stanford
campus as if they were criminals and placed into a simulated prison environment. Although the plans were to confine them to this environment only for two weeks, the experiment
had to be ended after only six days due to the tremendous psychological effect it was having on the prisoners. During
the short period of time Stanford students were employed in their duties of acting as guards and prisoners, they exhibited a diversity of psychological maladaptions. The "guards" took on sadistic
tendencies and the "prisoners" showed extreme signs of stress and depression. Zimbardo concluded that these psychological manifestations were a reflection of the mindset that was created by the mock
prison. Zimbardo used the analogy of "prisons of the mind" and suggested that such prisons are created, populated, and perpetuated on
a daily basis in human populations as a result of such factors as racism, sexism, despair, and shyness. Despair is a particularly notable phenomena in regard to the events
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