How does the Stanford Prison Experiment relate to Abu Ghraib?
In 1971, Philip G. Zimbardo, PhD, conducted a simulated jail study known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Mirroring the Abu Ghraib situation, the Stanford guards–who had no apparent prior psychological problems –became brutal and abusive toward prisoners.
What does Zimbardo say about the Abu Ghraib incident?
Zimbardo said that unless systemic forces, including poverty, racism and military conditions like those that existed in Abu Ghraib are recognized and changed, imprisonment alone will never eliminate the problem of evil behavior and there will always be a bad apple at the bottom of the barrel.
What is similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment?
Similar studies Both studies examine human nature and the effects of authority. Personalities of the subjects had little influence on both experiments despite the test before the prison experiment. In both the Milgram and the Zimbardo studies, participants conform to social pressures.
How does the Stanford Prison Experiment relate to the real world?
Significance. The Stanford Prison Experiment has become one of psychology’s most dramatic illustrations of how good people can be transformed into perpetrators of evil, and healthy people can begin to experience pathological reactions – traceable to situational forces.
What did we learn from Abu Ghraib?
Morality aside, experts say prisoner abuse is also ineffective. The physical and mental abuses allegedly meted out by US guards at the infamous prison of Abu Ghraib were highly unprofessional – and probably unproductive as well, say intelligence experts.
How does Zimbardo explain the psychology of abuse at Abu Ghraib?
Zimbardo has argued that the soldiers at Abu Ghraib were stellar, all-American soldiers whose histories and personalities could not explain their abusive behavior. But an open-minded assessment of these soldiers reveals that some, at least, were not the all-American boy or girl next door.
In what ways was the Zimbardo experiment unethical?
Ethical Issues The study has received many ethical criticisms, including lack of fully informed consent by participants as Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in the experiment (it was unpredictable). Also, the prisoners did not consent to being ‘arrested’ at home.
Why did the US use Abu Ghraib?
Abu Ghraib prison was opened in the 1950s and served as a maximum-security prison with torture, weekly executions, and squalid living conditions. From the 1970s, the prison was used by Saddam Hussein and later the United States to hold political prisoners.
What really happened at Abu Ghraib?
The Abu Ghraib scandal broke on 28 April 2004 when photos taken by him and other soldiers at the prison were revealed on CBS News. The pictures showed naked prisoners heaped into a pyramid, forced to simulate sexual acts and adopt humiliating poses.