Unit 22 - Research Methodology for Health and Social Care
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Stanford Prison Experiment research
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Unit 22 - Research Methodology for Health and Social Care
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Stanford Prison ExperimentIN this assignment I will choose two examples of research from health and social care and I will discuss the reasons as to why they were carried out and the outcomes obtained. I will also refer to bias and validity in my answer. I will also look at why the research was car...
Unit 22 - Research Methodology for Health and Social Care
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Research Methodology M1 Daniel Trew
M1: Discuss the function of research in chosen area interest.
IN this assignment I will choose two examples of research from health and social
care and I will discuss the reasons as to why they were carried out and the outcomes
obtained. I will also refer to bias and validity in my answer. I will also look at why the
research was carried out, who carried it out and what was found. The first piece of
research I will discuss is the Stanford Prison Experiment.
The Sandford Prison experiment was carried out on the 14 th-20th of August in 1971. It
was a social psychology experiment that attempted to investigate the psychological
effects of perceived power, the experiment focused on the struggle between
prisoners and prison officers. It was conducted by Phillip Zimbardo (1973)- A
psychology professor. He held the experiment at Stanford University and college
students took part and played the officers and prisoners- they were randomly
assigned these roles. Zimbardo served as the superintendent of the prison.
Throughout the experiment many prisoners left and soon after the experiment
started it was abandoned- 6 days. Results showed that the college students quickly
embraced their roles that they were assigned. Many of the guards enforced
authoritarian measures and this led to subjecting prisoners to psychological torture.
Many prisoners accepted this as part of the experiment and by order of the prison
guards harassed other prisoners who tried to stop the abuse. This experiment has
been described in many different textbooks however, some have chosen to exclude
it as its methodology is often questioned.
Method of Research:
Male college students were recruited and informed that they would take part in a
two-week prison simulation in which half would become the officers and the other
half would become prisoners. The researchers chose 24 applicants whose test
results showed that they would be the most psychologically stable throughout the
experiment. These individuals were mostly white and belonged to the middle class.
This group was purposely chosen to exclude those with any criminal background,
psychological issues or any medical problems. All of them agreed to participate in a
7-14-day period and received $15 a day.
The experiment took part in a 35-foot section of the basement of the Stanford
psychology building known as the Jordan Hall. The simulated prison has two
makeshift walls- one at the entrance and the other at the cell wall to block any
observation. Every cell was around 6 x 9 feet. They call contained a bed for the
prisoner. The guards were allowed extremely different living environments. They
were given rest and relaxation areas.
12 of the 24 participants were assigned prisoners and there was 3 placed as
substitutes. The other 12 were given the role of guards while 3 were also substitutes.
As previously mentioned, Zimbardo (1973)was served at the superintendent of the
prison. An undergraduate took the role of the warden. Zimbardo (1973)designed the
experiment in order to induce depersonalization, disorientation and
deindividualization.
, Research Methodology M1 Daniel Trew
Researchers held an orientation session for all the participants who took on roles as
guards. They were instructed not to harm the prisoners in any way physically and
they were not to withhold food or drink from them either. IN recorded footage from
the experiment Zimbardo (1973)is seen taking to the guards telling them “ you are
allowed to create feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree, you can
create a notion of arbitrariness that we have control over their life’s- by the system,
by you, by me and they have no privacy.. We are going to take away their
individuality in many ways which will lead to a sense of powerlessness. That is, in
this situation we’ll have all the power and they will be left with none.”
The guards were provided with wooden batons to establish their status, clothing
similar to what a real prison officer would wear – Khaki shirt and trousers from a local
military surplus shop, mirrored sunglasses to prevent eye contact. Prisoners were
made to wear uncomfortable fitting smocks an stocking caps as well as a chain
around their ankle. Guards were to call prisoners by their assigned number instead
of their names.
Those who were prisoners were arrested at their homes and charged with armed
robbery. The local police department were able to assistant in these arrests and
conducted full booking procedures on the prisoners. This included taking mug shots
and fingerprints. Prisoners were transported to the mock prisons and were then strip
searched and given new identities. Small prison cells were assigned to 3 prisoners.
There was a small corridor used as the prison yard and a small room for solitary
confinement. There was also a bigger room to be used by guards and the warden.
Prisoners were to stay in their cells and the yard all day until the end of the study.
Guards worked in teams of three for eight-hour shifts. Guards were not required to
stay in the building or on site after their shift.
Guards had different responses to their new roles. There was one guard who was
described by the Stanford Magazine as “the most abusive guard”. He felt that his
aggressive approach helped experimenters to get what they wanted. Another
participant who hoped to be selected as a prisoner recalls “I brought a joint with me
to give to the prisoners. I saw their faces and saw how they were getting dispirited
and I felt sorry for them”. The warden David Jaffe intervened to change this guard’s
behaviour, encouraging him to be more tough.
Controversy:
There has been controversy over both the scientific rigor and ethics of the Stanford
Prison experiment since nearly the beginning. A French Academic and filmmaker
Thibault Le Texier wrote a book in 2018 about this experiment- ‘Story of a Lie’. He
wrote that it could not be meaningful described as an experiment and there weren’t
any real results from it. IN response to this criticism Zimbardo agreed that the
experiment was more of a demonstration rather than a scientific experiment.
Zimbardo (1973) stated that from the beginning of the experiment he has always
described it as a demonstration. The only thing that made it an experiment was the
random assignment of prisoners and guards- this was the independent variable.
There was no control group and there was no comparison group. It did not fit what is
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