The Stanford Prison Experiment was a landmark psychological study of the human response to captivity, in particular, to the real world circumstances of prison life. Subjects were randomly assigned to play the role of "prisoner" or "guard". Those assigned to play the role of guard were given sticks and sunglasses; those assigned to play the prisoner role were arrested by the Palo Alto police department, deloused, forced to wear chains and prison garments, and transported to the basement of the Stanford psychology department, which had been converted into a sort of jail.
What was the lesson learned from Zimbardo’s (1971) Stanford Prison experiment about the influence of social roles on an individual’s behavior?
Several of the guards became progressively more sadistic — particularly at night when they thought the cameras were off, despite being picked by chance out of the same pool as the prisoners.
The experiment very quickly got out of hand. A riot broke out on day two. One prisoner developed a psychosomatic rash all over his body upon finding out that his "parole" had been turned down. After only 6 days (of a planned two weeks), the experiment was shut down, for fear that one of the prisoners would be seriously hurt. Although the intent of the experiment was to examine captivity, its result has been used to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support. It is also used to illustrate cognitive dissonance theory and the power of seniority/authority.
How do findings from this study help you explain the torture of prisoners in Iraq?
The human rights abuses that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison under the authority of the American armed forces in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq war may be a recent example of what happened in the experiment in real life. Soldiers were thrust into the role of prison guards and began to sadistically torment prisoners there and at other detention sites in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of the specific acts of humiliation were similar to those that occurred in the Stanford Prison Experiment, according to Zimbardo.
2. What was the lesson learned from Solomon Asch's (1952) line comparison study about the power of peer group influence on individual behavior?
In psychological terms, conformity refers to an individual's tendency to follow the unspoken rules or behaviors of the social group to which he or she belongs. Researchers have long been interested in the degree to which people follow or rebel against social norms. During the 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a series of experiments designed to demonstrate the power of conformity in groups.
In Asch's experiments, students were told that they were participating in a 'vision test.' Unbeknownst to the subject, the other participants in the experiment were all confederates, or assistants of the experimenter. At first, the confederates answered the questions correctly, but eventually began providing incorrect answers.
Nearly 75 percent of the participants in the conformity experiments went along with the rest of the group at least one time. After combining the trials, the results indicated that participants conformed to the incorrect group answer approximately one-third of the time. In order to make certain that participants were able to correctly gauge the length of the lines, participants were asked to individually write down the correct match. According to these results, participants were very precise in their line judgments, choosing the correct answer 98 percent of the time.
The experiments also looked at the effect that the number of people present in the group had on conformity. When just one other confederate was present, there was no impact on participants' answers. The presence of two confederates had only a small effect. The level of conformity seen with three or more confederates was far more significant.
Asch also found that having one of the confederates give the correct answer while the rest of the confederates gave the incorrect answer dramatically lowered conformity. In this situation, just five to ten percent of the participants conformed to the rest of the group. Later studies have also supported this findings, suggesting that having social support is an important tool in combating conformity.
At the conclusion of the experiments, participants were asked why they had gone along with the rest of the group. In most cases, the students stated that while they knew the rest of the group was wrong, they did not want to risk facing ridicule. A few of the participants suggested that they actually believed the other members of the group were correct in their answers.
These results suggest that conformity can be influenced both by a need to fit in and a belief that other people are smarter or better informed. Given the level of conformity seen in Asch's experiments, conformity can be even stronger in real-life situations where stimuli are more ambiguous or more difficult to judge.
How do findings from this study help you explain the abusive behavior of U.S. soldiers towards prisoners in Iraq? This information is also in text.
This research has provided important insight into how, why and when people conform and the effects of social pressure on behavior. it tries to show how perfectly normal human beings can be pressured into unusual behavior by authority figures, or by the consensus of opinion around them.
3. What was the lesson learned from Janis’s (1972, 1989) study about group think during decision-making? During his career, Janis studied decision making in areas such as dieting and smoking. This work described how people respond to threats, as well as what conditions give rise to irrational complacency, apathy, hopelessness, rigidity, and panic.
Janis also made important contributions to the study of group dynamics He did extensive work in the area of “groupthink,” which describes the tendency of some groups to try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without sufficiently testing, analyzing, and evaluating their ideas.
How do findings from this study help you explain the moral judgment of abusive soldiers at Abu Ghraib? This information is also in your text.
His work suggested that pressures for conformity restrict the thinking of the group, bias its analysis, promote simplistic and stereotyped thinking, and stifle individual creative and independent thought.
4. What was the lesson learned from Stanley Milgram's (1963) research about peoples’ obedience to authority?
This is an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. He examined justifications for acts of genocide offered by those accused at the World War II, Nuremberg War Criminal trials. Their defense often was based on "obedience" - that they were just following orders of their superiors. Milgram selected participants for his experiment by advertising for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale University. The procedure was that the participant was paired with another person and they drew lots to find out who would be the ‘learner’ and who would be the ‘teacher’. The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher, and the learner was one of Milgram’s confederates (pretending to be a real participant). The learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace) was taken into a room and had electrodes attached to his arms, and the teacher and researcher went into a room next door that contained an electric shock generator and a row of switches marked from 15 volts (Slight Shock) to 375 volts (Danger: Severe Shock) to 450 volts (XXX). Milgram was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. Stanley Milgram was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities for example, Germans in WWII.
How do findings from this study help you explain the torture of prisoners in Iraq? This information is also in your text.
Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. Obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up. Obey parents, teachers, anyone in authority etc.
5. How did ingroup-outgroup dynamics factor into the torture? Inside the Abu Ghraid Prison which group was considered the “ingroup” and which group was considered the “outgroup”? How are outgroup members generally treated by ingroup members and why? What does your text tell you about ingroup-outgroup dynamics in chapter 6? What did you learn from the Farmingville Case Study about the treatment of outsiders by the local ingroup?
The terminology was made popular by Hnri Taifel and colleagues during his work in formulating social identity theory. The significance of ingroup and outgroup categorization was identified using a method called the minimal group paradigm Tajfel and colleagues found that people can form self preferencing ingroups within a matter of minutes and that such groups can form even on the basis of seemingly trivial characteristics, such as preferences for certain paintings
Group dynamics refers to a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group (intra group dynamics), or between social groups (intergroup dynamics). The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behavior, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies. Group dynamics are at the core of understanding racism, sexism, and other forms of social prejudice and discrimination. the influence of groups on the individual can also generate extremely negative behaviors such as in the case of Abu Ghraid. Prejudice (unconscious prejudice in group / out group bias. Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick – sentenced 8 years was the in group and was the leader of the predjudice against . The out group who were tortured with Bags were placed over Iraqi prisoners heads, they were stripped, chained together, sexually humiliated, tripped by guards, forced to clean toilets with their hands.
In 2004, the media focused on the mistreatment of prisoners after pictures were shown of American soldiers demoralizing the Iraqi prisoners.
Prisoners in Abu Ghraib were humiliated and harmed by psychological and physical abuse. Most shockingly those enforcing the abuse were members of the United States military. This happened in Farmingville when many of the local people began ingroups and started killing the immigrant farm workers .
President Bush said I absolutely disapprove of the acts of prison abuse at Abu Ghraib and find them dehumanizing.
Zimbardo says that “Individual behavior is largely under the control of social forces and environmental contingencies rather than personality traits, character, will power or other empirically invalidated constructs” (Zimbardo, 128). Observers of this experiment believe that they would not act similarly until they are in the same situation. The social scripts and “roles” the people took made them act that way. The labels given can modify behavior meaning they can be a big cause for prison abuse. This “pathology” of imprisonment can be unpredictable. While I do not think that the personnel involved in the Abu Ghraib prison were innocent, Zimbardo has made me realize that this is a bigger social problem. Such behavior results from social psychological forces. The “labels” from the experiment can lead to such behavior. Due to how unpredictable this behavior is, I really think that prison guards need to be monitored and that humane treatment must be enforced. I would like to mention how the media used the events at Abu Ghraib to frame the social problem of prison abuse and look at problems with law enforcement within our nation. 1. A crime is An action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law. 2. Illegal activities: "the victims of crime". | | |
7. What does the broken windows theory (Wilson & Kelling 1982) tell you about how the surrounding environment or social context shapes individual behavior? Specifically, how did conditions in Iraq influence the behavior of U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib?
A crime-fighting theory that says stopping major crimes begins with stopping small ones has influenced policing strategies since the 1980s. Broken windows theory suggests that a society or subset of society that appears to be lawless will itself breed lawlessness. Broken windows theory is most closely linked with conservative sociology, focusing on social cohesion and law and order. It has had great influence on law enforcement policy from the 1980s to the present. The Taguba report indicates these factors included “difference in culture, Soldiers’ quality of life, and the real presence of mortal danger over an extended time period, and the failure of commanders to recognize these pressures contributed to the perversive atmosphere that existed at Abu Ghraib Detention Facility…” So, the Taguba report points both to the direct impact of psychological stressors on soldiers, as well as failure of leaders to recognize and address these stressors in some way. Previous research into psychological stressors during military operations has identified the following five key factors: Ambiguity, Isolation, Powerlessness, Boredom, and Danger It appears that all of these psychological factors are likely ones for U.S. soldiers presently in Iraq. It also includes uncertainty regarding who is the enemy, and who is a friend, and Boredom can expand to questions about the importance of one’s actions. Also the workload or operations-tempo stress, reflecting long work hours, frequent and longer deployment cycles, and inadequate staffing that can result from limited resources and/or failure to replace individual losses over the course of a deployment. The Taguba report indicates that U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib facility were “undermanned and under resourced”, and that as a Reserve Component unit, had no system for replacing individuals who were lost for reasons such as medical or having completed the required term of active duty.
8. Use two other sociological (not biological or psychological) theories of crime and deviance to ex
Another sociological explanation of deviance comes from Structural functionalism. This approach argues that deviant behavior plays an active, constructive role in society by helping to cohere different populations within a certain society. Deviance helps to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. It draws lines and shows boundaries. This is an important function that affirms the cultural values and norms of a society for the members of that society. In addition to illuminating the moral boundaries of society, deviant behavior can also promote social unity by creating an “us-versus-them” mentality in relation to deviant individuals. This is plainly clear to see in what happened at Abu Ghraid. It was an us versus them, the gaurds versus the prisoners. And the gaurds didn’t have very many guidelines or rules, and there were a lot of acceptable behaviors among that certain group that would not be acceptable outside of that group.
Labeling Theory
The theory of deviance is labeling theory Labeling theory refers to the idea that individuals become deviant when a deviant label is applied to them; it is like this in the Abu Ghraid prison when George Bush and others said it was just a few bad apples that committed this crime. And that it was not an issue of a bigger sociological issue. they adopt the label by exhibiting the behaviors, actions, and attitudes associated with the label. Labeling theory argues that people become deviant as a result of others forcing that identity upon them.
9. Was what happened at Abu Ghraid a gendered phenomenon? Please explain your answer.
In Abu Ghraib the tables are turned. Men - men who have been characterized by many as evil, or at the least not to be trusted -- are on the receiving end. And women, long held up by our society as a 'kinder, gentler' class of persons, are engaging in abuse and humiliation. Evil is not a gendered phenomenon.
10. Would the violence committed against Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers be considered a crime of the powerful? Why or why not? Yes, There is plenty of evidence to suggest that minority groups have been unfairly discriminated against by the Iraqi soldiers.
11. Which would work better to prevent other soldiers from committing acts of violence against foreign prisoners in the future—imprisonment of the solider-perpetrator or shaming? Please explain your answer.
Sentencing a soldier to shaming not imprisonment, better serves utilitarian, expressive, rehabilitative, and retributive goals specific to the wrongs of the soldiers.
