Interpersonal Dynamics in a Stimulated Prison

By: Megan Krystofik, Erika Sollie, Sarah

Woychick and Jake Vicanti

Stanford Prison Experiment

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=677084988379129606 (beginning to 2:36)

 

Lucifer Effect

• The “Lucifer Effect” describes the point in time when an ordinary, normal person first crosses the boundary between good and evil to engage in an evil action. (http://www.lucifereffect.com/lucifer.htm)

•http://www.glumbert.com/media/lucifereffect

Discussion Questions

• Zimbardo mentions the term dispositional hypothesis which essentially states that prisons maintain their violent and dehumanizing persona due to the violent nature of the criminals that are contained there. To what extent do you believe this to be accurate? (45)

• One prisoner makes the comment “I was 416. I was really my number and 416 was really going to have to decide what to do. I learned that people can easily forget that others are human”. From this statement, what are the conclusions one can make about the psychological impact on the prisoners?

• The guards’ comments are very different from the prisoners. Some of them seem cruel such as “looking back, I am impressed by how little I felt for them…power can be a great pleasure”. These comments by people who passed all tests and deemed “normal” seem extremely abnormal. Is it possible for environment to change a person completely? (Even if it is only simulation?)

Central Questions• Why did the people react the way they did

when they were in the simulated prison?• What does this experiment say about

mankind since decent human beings will do terrible things when put in bad situations?

Closed-web Article Question• How does Kegan’s theory explain the

abuse at Abu Ghraib?