Assignment 1 – Stanford Prison Experiment (Ethics)

Please read through the Standford Prison Experiment by clicking this link: http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/1



Then answer the following questions:

  1. Was it ethical to do this study? Was it right to trade the suffering experienced by participants for the knowledge gained by the research?
  2. How do the ethical dilemmas in this research compare with the ethical issues raised by Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments? Would it be better if these studies had never been done?
  3. If you were the experimenter in charge, would you have done this study? Done anything differently? Would you have terminated it earlier? Would you have conducted a follow-up study?
  4. How can we change our real institutions, such as Attica Prison, when they are designed to resist critical evaluation and operate in relative secrecy from taxpayers and legislators?
  5. Knowing what this research says about the power of prison situations to have a corrosive effect on human nature, what recommendations would you make about changing the correctional system in our country?