Do you think the Stanford Prison Experiment was ethical? Why or why not?
I think that the Stanford Prison Experiment was very unethical because Dr. Zimbardo must have known that the power play would cause this deep psychological distress on maybe a few participants. I do give him the benefit of the doubt because I would have never guess that the participants would fall so easily into their roles in just a matter of 3 days. This is an excellent look into the human psyche but at what cost? What happened to the people involved? Was the main guard ever a "nice guy" ever again? Or had the experiment completely changed his personality? And the prisoners how did they fare after the experiment? What happened when they ran into the "guards" on campus? All of these questions prove that the experiment most likely caused harm to many if not all of the participants therefore making it an unethical experiment.
On a side note I find it crazy that the participants fell into their roles in 3 days! And they knew what was going on, they knew it wasn't real, but they made it real. That is the part that gets me the most is that they all let it get too real for them.
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