TCPS 2: CORE Review Study Guide Latest Version

Research Ethics Board (REB) research oversight group that evaluates research to protect the rights of participants in the study Researcher's intention is to... -to NOT deliberately harm the people who agree to participate in a research project -The intent to do no harm, however, is not a guarantee that no harm will occur. The Stanford Prison Experiment -Philip Zimbardo's study of the effect of roles on behavior. -Participants were randomly assigned to play either prisoners or guards in a mock prison. -guards became sadistic and prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. -The study was ended early because of the "guards'" role-induced cruelty. 1) A Quiet Sunday Morning... --police car swept through the town picking up college students as part of a mass arrest for violation of Penal Codes 211, Armed Robbery, and Burglary, a 459 PC. (fake arrests/charges) 2) Volunteers --What suspects had done was to answer a local newspaper ad calling for volunteers in a study of the psychological effects of prison life. --simulated prison and then carefully note the effects of this institution on the behavior of all those within its walls. --More than 70 applicants but were left with a sample of 24 college students from the U.S. and Canada who happened to be in the Stanford area and wanted to earn $15/day by participating in a study. --divided into two groups by a flip of the coin. Half were randomly assigned to be guards, the other to be prisoners. 3) A State of Mild Shock... --Blindfolded and in a state of mild shock over their surprise arrest by the city police, our prisoners were put into a car and driven to the "Stanford County Jail" for further processing. The prisoners were then brought into our jail one at a time and greeted by the warden, who conveyed the seriousness of their offense and their new status as prisoners. 4) Humiliation --Each prisoner was systematically searched and stripped naked. He was then deloused with a spray, to convey our belief that he may have germs or lice 5) Enforcing Law --The guards were given no specific training on how to be guards. Instead they were free, within limits, to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain law and order in the prison and to command the respect of the prisoners. --Warden David Jaffe --began with nine guards and nine prisoners in our jail. Three guards worked each of three eight-hour shifts, while three prisoners occupied each of the three barren cells around the clock. The remaining guards and prisoners from our sample of 24 were on call in case they were needed. The cells were so small that there was room for only three cots on which the prisoners slept or sat, with room for little else. 6) Asserting Authority --At 2:30 A.M. the prisoners were rudely awakened from sleep by blasting whistles for the first of many "counts." The counts served the purpose of familiarizing the prisoners with their numbers (counts took place several times each shift and often at night). But more importantly, these events provided a regular occasion for the guards to exercise control over the prisoners. 7) Asserting Independence --Because the first day passed without incident, we were surprised and totally unprepared for the rebellion which broke out on the morning of the second day. --At first they insisted that reinforcements be called in. --but, got a fire extinguisher which shot a stream of skin-chilling carbon dioxide, and they forced the prisoners away from the doors. --The guards broke into each cell, stripped the prisoners naked, took the beds out, forced the ringleaders of the prisoner rebellion into solitary confinement, and generally began to harass and intimidate the prisoners. 8) Special Privileges --couldn't have nine guards on duty at all times --use psychological tactics instead of physical ones = setting up a privilege cell. 9) The First Prisoner Released --Less than 36 hours into the experiment, Prisoner #8612 began suffering from acute emotional disturbance, disorganized thinking, uncontrollable crying, and rage. --took quite a while before we became convinced that he was really suffering and that we had to release him. 10) A Mass Escape Plot --The rumor went as follows: Prisoner #8612, whom we had released the night before, was going to round up a bunch of his friends and break in to free the prisoners. --decided to put an informant (an experimental confederate) in the cell that #8612 had occupied. 11) A Visit --Gordon Bower. Gordon had heard we were doing an experiment, and he came to see what was going on. I briefly described what we were up to, and Gordon asked me a very simple question: "Say, what's the independent variable in this study?" 12) Paying Them Back --The rumor of the prison break turned out to be just a rumor. 13) A Kafkaesque Element --At this point in the study, I invited a Catholic priest who had been a prison chaplain to evaluate how realistic our prison situation was, and the result was truly Kafkaesque. The chaplain interviewed each prisoner individually, and I watched in amazement as half the prisoners introduced themselves by number rather than name. 14) #819 --The only prisoner who did not want to speak to the priest was Prisoner #819, who was feeling sick, had refused to eat, and wanted to see a doctor rather than a priest. Eventually he was persuaded to come out of his cell and talk to the priest and superintendent so we could see what kind of a doctor he needed. 15) Parole Board --The next day, all prisoners who thought they had grounds for being paroled were chained together and individually brought before the Parole Board. The Board was composed mainly of people who were strangers to the prisoners (departmental secretaries and graduate students) and was headed by our top prison consultant. 16) Types of Guards --tough but fair guards who followed prison rules --there were "good guys" who did little favors for the prisoners and never punished them. --about a third of the guards were hostile, arbitrary, and inventive in their forms of prisoner humiliation 17) John Wayne --The prisoners even nicknamed the most macho and brutal guard in our study "John Wayne." 18) Prisoners' Coping Styles --Prisoners coped with their feelings of frustration and powerlessness in a variety of ways. At first, some prisoners rebelled or fought with the guards. Four prisoners reacted by breaking down emotionally as a way to escape the situation. One prisoner developed a psychosomatic rash over his entire body when he learned that his parole request had been turned down. Others tried to cope by being good prisoners, doing everything the guards wanted them to do. One of them was even nicknamed "Sarge," because he was so military-like in executing all commands. 19) One Final Act of Rebellion --We did see one final act of rebellion. Prisoner #416 was newly admitted as one of our stand-by prisoners. Unlike the other prisoners, who had experienced a gradual escalation of harassment, this prisoner's horror was full-blown when he arrived. The "old timer" prisoners told him that quitting was impossible, that it was a real prison. 20) An End to the Experiment --On the fifth night, some visiting parents asked me to contact a lawyer in order to get their son out of prison. They said a Catholic priest had called to tell them they should get a lawyer or public defender if they wanted to bail their son out! I called the lawyer as requested, and he came the next day to interview the prisoners with a standard set of legal questions, even though he, too, knew it was just an experiment. At this point it became clear that we had to end the study. We had created an overwhelmingly powerful situation -- a situation in which prisoners were withdrawing and behaving in pathological ways, and in which some of the guards were behaving sadistically. Even the "good" guards felt helpless to intervene, and none of the guards quit while the study was in progress. Indeed, it should be noted that no guard ever came late for his shift, called in sick, left early, or demanded extra pay for overtime work.