Psychology Essay: Standford Prison Experiment

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The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Stanford Prison experiment has encountered criticism since it took place in 1971, drawing the ire or researchers who have pointed out several of its design and ethical weaknesses. From the onset, researcher Philip Zimbardo made many fatal mistakes that were questionable at the time and which are unacceptable in credible studies today.
The first concern was Zimbardo’s insistence on continuing with the experiment even after some participants expressed the desire to pull out of the set up. Research ethics dictate that a respondent can withdraw from a study process at any moment and cannot be coerced to continue against their will. This is to safeguard against participants who may feel compromised, exposed to reprisals, offended by the process or line of questioning, or any other reason that makes their contribution detrimental to the study. After the experiment it emerged that Zimbardo informed the respondents that they could leave at any time but did not allow it when some requested to withdraw.
The second concern is that some participants later revealed that Zimbardo instructed them on how to behave depending on their roles in the experiment. The professor instructed some of the ‘prison guards’ to exert psychological torture on their ‘inmates’ to ensure he had some findings to work with and analyze. This means that the researcher rigged the outcome to favor specific findings, essentially rendering the study null and void ab initio.
Third, Zimbardo did not bother to conduct a debriefing session with his par...