Implications for Defence Managers and Commanders of the Findings of Research Paper

Implications for Defence Managers and Commanders of the Findings of Zimbardos Stanford Prison Experiment - Research Paper Example Take one prisoner as an example; he is kept inside a closed room with only one opening ornamented with hard iron rods but, what happens when one good human being is put in an evil place Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumphs "A prison is any situation in which one person's freedom and liberty are denied by virtue of the arbitrary power exercised by another person or group. Thus our prisons of concrete and steel are really only metaphors for the social prisons we create and maintain through enforced poverty, racism, sexism, and other forms of social injustice." (Committee on the Judiciary, 114) The above quote is what Dr. Philip Zimbardo, a Ph. D. in Psychology from Stanford University derived from his famous Stanford Prison Experiment. The Stanford prison experiment was a psychological study of "human responses to captivity and its behavioral effects on both authorities and inmates in prison". The experiment was conducted in 1971 in Palo Alto, California by a team of researchers led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. As per the scheduled plan, voluntary participants were recruited via a newspaper ad and offered $15 a day to participate in a two-week "prison simulation." An astonishing number of 75 students responded. The applicants were interviewed and tested "to eliminate candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse" (Stanford Prison Experiment website). Twenty-four students from the U.S. and Canada, a group of healthy, intelligent, middle-class males, were considered for the experiment and were promised of $15/day. They were divided into two groups, to act as guards and prisoners. A former prisoner who had served nearly seventeen years behind bars served as the consultant. A prison was constructed in the basement of Stanford's Psychology Department building, To create prison cells, doors were taken off some laboratory rooms and replaced by specially made doors with steel bars and cell numbers. Bars on cells were put in place and had three prisoners living in small quarters night and day. A small closet, about two feet wide and two feet deep was constructed to act as "The Hole" for solitary confinement. The local police co-operated in sweeping through the town, picking up suspects who were actually the selected volunteers, they were put into a car, driven to the Stanford county jail for further processing and subsequently brought to the make-shift jail. The prisoners were each searched, stripped naked, and deloused. The prisoner has then issued a uniform. The main part of this uniform was a dress, or smock, which each prisoner wore at all times with no underclothes. On the smock, in front, and in the back, was his prison ID number. On each prisoner's ri ght ankle was a heavy chain, bolted on and worn at all times. Rubber sandals were the footwear, and each prisoner covered his hair with a stocking cap made from a woman's nylon stocking. The entire experiment was recorded and videotaped. The guards weren't given any specific training; they made up their own rules upon supervision of Warden David Jaffe, an undergraduate from Stanford University. They were dressed in identical uniforms of khaki, carried a whistle and a billy club borrowed from the police.  Ã‚