Short anwser - Assignment Example

MGT 422 Leading Teams Fall Stanford Prison Experiment Due Wednesday, September 18, You may complete the assignment on yourown or with a partner. Thoroughly answer all of the following questions which are within the body of the slide show portion of the web site http://www.prisonexp.org/ Answer the questions based on the slideshow AND your own critical thinking, You may also want to review the discussion questions but do not need to answer these formally.Grading: 5 points for each question.1. What are the effects of living in an environment with no clocks, no view of the outside world, and minimal sensory stimulation?

Living in a world like this causes someone to lose track of time, and this can play havoc with their body clock. Keeping track of time helps us to know when to eat, sleep, etc. Losing this ability will result in the body doing some weird things such as sleep deprivation and so on. 2. Consider the psychological consequences of stripping, delousing, and shaving the heads of prisoners or members of the military. What transformations take place when people go through an experience like this?When people go through experiences like this it makes them feel less than human because this kind of treatment is usually only metered out to animals.

As a result of this people feel humiliated and that they are not special. Of course the purpose of this is to weaken self-confidence.3. At first push-ups were not a very aversive form of punishment, but they became more so as the study wore on. Why the change?The act of a push-up is not too hard to do for a man with average or above average strength, but after some time it does weaken the prisoners physically. This is an important form of punishment because the prisoners need to feel pain in order to make them submissive to the guards.

Other forms of punishment, like psychological or emotional, work well but a physical aspect also needs to be included.4. How do you think you would have behaved if you were a prisoner in this situation? Would you have rejected these privileges in order to maintain prisoner solidarity?If I was a prisoner in this situation then I would have behaved well because I would know that I would get the special treatment. This type of incentive always works well because it makes people think that if they just toe the line then everything will be okay.

I would not be worried about prisoner solidarity because I would be in there for myself and other people can take care of their own interests.5. Most prisoners believed that the subjects selected to be guards were chosen because they were bigger than those who were made prisoners, but actually, there was no difference in the average height of the two groups. What do you think caused this misperception?After many days of psychological and physical submission, the guards appeared to look bigger than they actually were.

This is because they had power over the prisoners, and this gives the guards confidence that shows in their actions and mannerisms. 6. Compare the reactions of these visitors to the reactions of civilians in encounters with the police or other authorities. How typical was their behavior?Their behavior was the same in that most people have a natural respect for authority that is largely from our upbringing. Also, people are afraid somewhat of this authority and so they dont try to change it instantly but rather try to suggest small changes without scaring the authoritative figure. 7. In an exploratory study such as this, one problem is defining what the "data" are -- the information we should collect.

Also, what should have been done to minimize the effects of experimenter bias on the outcome of the study? What were the dangers of the principal investigator assuming the role of prison superintendent? To minimize the effects of the experimenter bias on the outcome of the study, some ex-jailers should have been used in the roles because they have experience on how to handle prisoners. The danger of the principal investigator assuming the role of prison superintendent is that he may have a conflict of interest.8. In 2003 U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners held at Abu Ghraib, 20 miles west of Baghdad.

The prisoners were stripped, made to wear bags over their heads, and sexually humiliated while the guards laughed and took photographs. How is this abuse similar to or different from what took place in the Stanford Prison Experiment?This abuse is very similar to what took place in the Stanford Prison Experiment because the whole purpose was to humiliate the prisoners so that they lost their identities. Once this was complete, it was easy to make them feel not human anymore.9. Where had our "John Wayne" learned to become such a guard?

How could he and others move so readily into that role? How could intelligent, mentally healthy, "ordinary" men become perpetrators of evil so quickly?The John Wayne character did not learn to become such a guard; instead he had natural traits that were brought out in his role as prison guard. People can become perpetrators of evil so quickly because they can do so and there is little chance of them getting in trouble.10. In the encounter sessions, all the prisoners were happy the experiment was over, but most of the guards were upset that the study was terminated prematurely.

Why do you think the guards reacted this way?Because the guards were unofficially in a position of power and when the experiment ended they felt like that power had been lost. Of course that power was not actually real, but it seemed like it to them because of all the things they could do.