Stanford Prison Experiment

Stanford Prison Experiment

Introduction

The Stanford Prison Experiment is a psychological experiment that was conducted in 1971 by American psychologist Philip Zimbardo. The experiment is a psychological study of human response to restriction of freedom, the conditions of prison life and the influence of imposed social roles on behavior. Volunteers played the roles of guards and prisoners and lived in a mock jail set up in the basement of the psychology department. Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, and, contrary to expectations, began to emerge a truly dangerous situation. Every third guards found sadistic and the prisoners were ...