Research in Sociology
1. If you were the experimenter in charge, would you have done this study? Would you have terminated it earlier? Would you have conducted a follow-up study? Why or why not?
If I were the experimenter in charge, I would not have done this study. While the initial question posed in both cases is intriguing, (if given specific orders, would a person follow them when under normal circumstances they would not) it is not a humane experiment. All of the people in this study could have potential lasting emotional and/or physical scars that may never heal. For instance, when Prisoner 8612 “began suffering from an acute emotional disturbance, disorganized thinking, uncontrollable crying, and rage” after only 36 hours into the experiment. How can the experimenter safeguard this person from these same effects when the experiment is over? Another reason I would not have conducted this experiment is how the prisoners’ families and friends were also unknowingly sucked into the belief that this was a real situation. The experimenters were worried that once the state of the prisoners was seen by their visitors, they would want the experiment to end immediately. So they “manipulated both the situation and the visitors by making the prison environment seem pleasant and benign.” Of course to maintain the validity of an experiment, you have to keep some things know only to the experimenters, but the entire basis of this study is on lies and deceit.
2. If you were a guard, what type of guard would you have become? How sure are you?
If I were a guard in this experiment, I feel I would have been a “good guy”. I do not think I would have been comfortable punishing the prisoners for such arbitrary rules. Upon witnessing the way the other guards and prisoners were treating them, I feel I would have felt badly and done anything I could to ease their pain. With that said though, I am a rule follower and probably would have still gone along with my role as a guard because that was my
If I were the experimenter in charge, I would not have done this study. While the initial question posed in both cases is intriguing, (if given specific orders, would a person follow them when under normal circumstances they would not) it is not a humane experiment. All of the people in this study could have potential lasting emotional and/or physical scars that may never heal. For instance, when Prisoner 8612 “began suffering from an acute emotional disturbance, disorganized thinking, uncontrollable crying, and rage” after only 36 hours into the experiment. How can the experimenter safeguard this person from these same effects when the experiment is over? Another reason I would not have conducted this experiment is how the prisoners’ families and friends were also unknowingly sucked into the belief that this was a real situation. The experimenters were worried that once the state of the prisoners was seen by their visitors, they would want the experiment to end immediately. So they “manipulated both the situation and the visitors by making the prison environment seem pleasant and benign.” Of course to maintain the validity of an experiment, you have to keep some things know only to the experimenters, but the entire basis of this study is on lies and deceit.
2. If you were a guard, what type of guard would you have become? How sure are you?
If I were a guard in this experiment, I feel I would have been a “good guy”. I do not think I would have been comfortable punishing the prisoners for such arbitrary rules. Upon witnessing the way the other guards and prisoners were treating them, I feel I would have felt badly and done anything I could to ease their pain. With that said though, I am a rule follower and probably would have still gone along with my role as a guard because that was my
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