Research Proposal on "Zimbardo What Is the Extent"

Research Proposal 5 pages (1667 words) Sources: 3

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Zimbardo

What is the extent to which one human can knowingly harm another? This is a question that psychologists continue to study, considering the horrors of such events as Nazi Germany. In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram's experiment told volunteers they were participating in a study about learning. Each individual was a "teacher" who was to administer electric shocks to a person in another room who failed to answer a question. Even when a person being shocked mentioned having a heart condition, the volunteer teachers kept on raising the shock levels (Ricker, 2002). A decade later, in the Stanford Prison Experiment, Philip Zimbardo divided college students up into guards and prisoners to role play what occurs in a prison. The "guards" took their responsibilities to the extreme. Does this only occur in studies? Unfortunately not, as is evidenced by the inhuman treatment of prisoners in Iraq by the American soldiers. According to Zimbardo, it will take assuming the heroic to turn things around for the better.

When some individuals read about the Milgrim study, they find it difficult to believe that people would give "life-threatening" shocks to others for not answering answers correctly, even when these "learner" have a bad heart. However, history has shown that there are certain conditions and types of individuals who will follow the commands of a leader regardless of how immoral and violent their goals. Last year, Jerry Berger, a Santa Clara University psychology professor recreated and confirmed Milgram's results. He modified the experiment by minimally lowering the voltage, but with a great deal of learner pain. Once again, the teachers were willing to torture the students when they had incorrect answers, as long as they were told to do so. Approximately 70% kept giving shocks up to the highest voltage level of 150 volts.

This again proved that most humans will unquestioningly impose horrible pain on innocent people when someone in authority tells them to (Ablow, 2008).

The Stanford Experiment by Zimbardo is another controversial study. It was conducted in 1971 to analyze the human response to captivity. Undergraduate students were either asked to play the role of a guard or prisoner in a mock prison role play set up in the psychology building basement at Stanford University. The goal of the research was to recreate realistic conditions that were prevalent in prisons of the time and the impact that these circumstances had on the behavior of those in power positions and people who were under direct control of established authorities (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, P.G., 1973).

It only took two days for the students to demonstrate specific traits that were directly related to their assigned responsibilities. The "guards" increasingly started displaying tendencies to treat the "prisoners" as of lower worth and bonding with each other and against the prisoners. The abuse by a number of guards was so severe that several of them were told to leave. Meanwhile, the prisons also began to identify more closely with each other, as a group and sub-groups within the community (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, P.G., 1973)

Although the students were from relatively homogeneous backgrounds in real life, both the guards and prisoners began making false assumptions about each other. Experiment conditions deteriorated significantly, and the Stanford Prison Experiment was called to a halt not even a week after it started. Sadism, humiliation, and the desire to choose between the good of the community and individual were common (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, P.G., 1973).

Zimbardo thought the experiment was successful in terms of promoting better understanding of social psychology in a coercive environment. Over the next several decades, the study has been criticized in various studies and scholarly works. Much of this research concluded that the structure of the Zimbardo experiment resulted in subjective and unscientific results; this is despite the fact that the experiment continues to be supported by a few social psychologists and has once again was recognized due to similar situations in Iraq.

The Stanford Prison Experiment clearly showed how readily even a minimalist and supposedly benign prison can become abusive and power hungry. Despite the fact that limits were in place to restrain how guards could act and react to prisoners' disobedience, rebellion, or escape, they still discovered ways of severe mistreatment. Some of the guards translated the term "role-appropriate" behavior to condone sadistic torment. The pains were more psychological in terms of inadequacy, powerlessness, degradation, frustration, and emotional distress, as they were physical or lack of sleep, poor diet and unhealthy living conditions. (Haney & Zimbardo, 1998).

Even more unfortunate is such a situation in real life. Unfortunately Philip Zimbardo "got the last laugh," which was not funny at all when reality copied role play with the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers. Similar to the Stanford Experiment, the abuse was more psychological than physiological. The fact that the soldiers took photographs of their mistreatment is even more upsetting. In one picture, naked Iraq prisoners are stacked like a human pyramid. One of the men has a English slur written on his skin. Another picture shows a prisoner standing on a box and his head covered and body attached with wires. He was told if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. Other photographs show male prisoners in position to simulate sex with each other (Ablow, 2008).

Meanwhile, the American military men and women are pictured in their uniforms along with the naked prisoners. If this were not bad enough, the Americans are laughing, pointing and posing. In addition, the Army had photographs that showed a detainee with wires attached to his genitals and another with a prisoner being attacked by a dog. The prisoner also said that a translator raped a young may prisoner (Ablow, 2008). Zimbardo most likely was not surprised by this situation. He had already questioned the leadership capabilities of Col. Thomas Pappas, who was the senior officer in charge of this Iraqi prison. In his book the Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo claims that Pappas, who was responsible for intelligence at Abu Ghraib, was declared "not combat fit" after living through a devastating mortar attack in 2003 -- only weeks prior to the abuses at the prison. Two American soldiers were killed in the attack and several others wounded, but Pappas was unharmed. Following, he repeatedly demonstrated weird behavior and argued that his "deteriorating mental condition did not permit him to provide the vitally necessary supervision of his soldiers working in the prison" (Zagorin, 2008).

None of these incidents bode well for human nature. What, if anything can be done to keep something like this from happening in the future? Zimbardo stresses that these abusive situations do not occur when responsible leadership is in charge and it is made strictly clear that harming prisoners will not be tolerated and individual dignity must be respected, when everyone knows the rules of engagement and is personally responsible for his or her actions, and that any wrongdoings of such protocol will be met with public criticism and punishment (Kawasaki, 2007). It is also crucial for all leaders to recognize the psychological parameters taking place in situations they create and to have psychologically trained individuals who are charged with making them work supportively not destructively.

Zimbardo adds that people are not born evil, but instead they are able to develop into anything they want, as newborns have the capability of learning scores of different languages. Nature gives individuals a push in certain directions, with specific personality traits. Yet what a person does with these traits is based on the integration of culture, history, religion and socio-politics in different environments. The majority of people do not realize how much their behavior is based on these situations, because they would rather think that it is innate. They ignore the concept of free will… READ MORE

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