Stanford Prison Experiment – Fake or Real?
– A purely conjectural perception
Part I
There is a lot
of excitement going around on this movie inspired by what I believe to be a
grossly misaligned or misconstrued research study when comparing its contents
with today’s facts as they have evolved since the experiment was conducted. Certainly
not an expert in the field of psychology, my main objection to this perception
it is real is based on my twenty five (25) years of experience inside our jails
and systems in the Southwest, specifically New Mexico and Arizona, who are
culturally different from those east of the Mississippi River and similar to
the California penal system with qualified exceptions in some areas.
Certainly, in
my opinion, if the research team had taken the time to organize their facts a
little bit better, the study would have acquired or attained a higher level of credibility
rather than the mediocre level of attention it is receiving now because of the current
media craze on our prison systems and its flaws. From my own personal
expectations, it is with regret that this study fell short or authenticity as
it would have and could have been a valuable tool in training and psychological
awareness of our penal world as it existed then and now.
The entire
lesson plan or script, whichever applies best, was based on the team participants
or the professor’s own vision, cultural and political awareness or educational
guesses, how prisoners are treated or mistreated by what he refers to as prison
guards in charge of the supervision and management of a real prison setting. One must be cautious in translating such roles
without the validity or evidence based procedures or conditions and thus any embossment
of such dynamics, are either invalidated or false in actions and reactions.
In other words,
it lacked the core values based on evidence gathered by various psychological profiles
that impact the manner prisoners are evaluated and perceived by real guards or
prison / jail administrators. You can’t pretend to engage in a role model behavioral
unless you receive the same pre-existing conditions real trained guards receive
during their tour of duty. This is based
on the theory of approach determines response in human behaviors.
The Genesis –
The Real Lesson
of the Stanford Prison Experiment nine (9) individuals who were staged to be
arrested, booked, processed and imprisoned in a most orchestrated manner that
rarely resembles reality in the manner it is done by those trained to do so. It
lacked innovative and creativity from the start.
First, to begin
with, this study is encapsulated with nine volunteers willing to subject
themselves to the rigors of the mindgames played under the pretense of
incarceration. This is the first key to
the reality, nobody volunteers to go to jail or prison. At least no one in
their right state of mind. Since the mind was at the core of this study, these
actors should have been casted on the more “unwilling” side of the spectrum
than volunteering for these roles. Making it mandatory would have imposed more
anxiety and stress into the relationships and occurrences as they were planned
or scripted to happen.
Second, the
stage is bare and sterile. These players had no concept of the reality involved
in running or managing a prison environment and did so on notions produced and
projected for the sake of the outcome of the study, not reality or other
variable that could have altered the outcome it the stage had been set right. Missing
are the physical elements that makes jails and prisons despairing and filthy
places to live or do time. These conditions play an important role on behaviors
as it produces side effects of frustration, contaminated and communicable
threats such as Hepatitis and often produces the negative subtleties that
trigger negative responses to negative demands by those guards.
All nine actors
were “arrested” on armed robbery and burglary charges. This taints the project
from the beginning as these similar charges draw analogous inferences or
cultural biases that do not cover the entire continuum of partialities if they
had been charged with variable offenses such as murder, rape, aggravated
assault, kidnapping, sexual molestations etc. these offenses all carry with
them institutional prejudices that impact supervision and management levels for
those in charge to manage them. If one is to conduct a real study, then the
participants should also cover the continuum of offenders incarcerated.
Prison is a
melting pot of criminals. They are all incarcerated, all dressed the same and
all taken care of in a similar manner but they all carry special needs towards
effective supervision and communication skills to maintain a safe and orderly environment.
In other words, compliance has to be attained using various effective forms of
managing behaviors but has to take into consideration their willingness to
comply or refuse verbal orders given by authority figures.
Conducting this
experiment is an honorable and worthy event. I can’t deny the fact, it does
serve a legitimate purpose in our study of human behaviors and our prison world
cultural phenomena as they really exist. However, conducting this on a stage that is
sterile in the usual biases, the usual influences and the grossly horrific
negativities that such a dismal and ghastly place projects, does little justice
to the reality of the study.
Had the
professor, Philip George Zimbardo, a psychologist and a professor emeritus at
Stanford University, done a little bit more of mental and physical preparation
to set the stage accordingly, it could have reached epic proportions of
credibility for others to benefit from. However, he overlooked the basic
principles of the core values implemented in any correctional setting and
failed to impose them at the right moments or places of this study to maximize
the impact of how this treatment process could have been evolved and how
revolution could have been created if it had done it with non-submissive
actors.
It is a fact,
all were prepared for the roles they were assigned to participate in this
study. Quoting the words of a well versed writer, Maria Konnikova, a contributor to the New Yorker, the
study consisted of “middle-class college students” who had previously answered
a “questionnaire about their family backgrounds, physical- and mental-health
histories, and social behavior, and had been deemed “normal.” Such a bold
statement of finding nine (9) willing students who were normal defeats the
psychological benefits of evaluating those who are either normal, below normal
or exceeding mentally impaired.
There is no such
class of inmates who are “normal” as they all carry with them their own
psychological profiles which in turn develops into established cultural expectation
of behaviors by the guards who stereotype, draw personal biases and impose discipline
accordingly to their own profiles or perceptions of each offender. All these
undercurrents work towards the compliance issues and is filled with pre-requisites
on training and screening for being hired for such roles as prison guards.
Giving them no
training voids their stereotyping based on cultural realities as they exist and
draws on the imagination or pretention of motive rather than real-life
situations inside our jails or prisons.
Artistic influences
on hired prison guards differ from cultural influences of prison guards. This perception
ranges from their own psychological profiles which is diverse and often include
the educated and not so educated group of people selected for the job. Since this
study was done back in the 1970’s with a remake in the millennium, these people
projected to be guards, now evolved into correctional officers today, due to
the evolution of their roles, training, experience prior to working as an
officer e.g. college, military, blue collar or white collar occupations. This makes
a major impact on treatment and supervisory methods used and performed for compliance
of the rules. In other words, this changes the stage immensely and changes the outcome
of respective behaviors or actions.
In this study,
the selection between being a prisoner or a guard was based on a mere flip of
the coin. A coin determined the roles played between what were perceived to be
good guys versus bad guys. A real phenomena but rarely imitated or assimilated truthfully
without some kind of preparation and study of real world dynamics. Facts play
an important role here for the outcome – whether desired or not – it fabricates
the dynamics of the stage.
Since the
guards (actors) received no training, they began their ordeal of mistreatment
and abuse based on their own myths and perceptions of what a prison guard does.
A lore that has often been mislabeled and mischaracterized as Neanderthal in nature
and accordingly, projected as guards with little training, education,
instruction and how they imposed their personal will on those prisoners
(actors) who were then humiliated and psychologically abused voluntarily and
within a swift twenty four hours into the study’s start.
Putting this
into perspective on today’s terms and realities, the evolution of corrections
has rectified, satisfied and declared much of these earlier versions of
brutalities and mindset changes to rest due to better judicial decisions since
the 1970’s on constitutional rights, and prison living conditions of
confinement that have been regulated and inserted into federal receiverships or
consent decrees by the courts in various jurisdictions and authority bodies
which regulate prison management.
References:
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