ABU GHRAIB PRISON, the new 'talk of the town' these days. This is where the shocking pictures of prison guards abusing prisoners were taken. Whether those pictures were hoax or tue I dont know. But it certainly does have some ressemblance with Phillip Zimbardo's prison experiment (1973).
Zimbardo aimed to explore the validity of the dispositional explanation. How would ordinary students behave if placed in a prison environment and some of them were designated as guards and others are prisoners?
24 students volunteered to take part in the study and were to be apid $15 a day. They were randomly assigned to being a prisoner or guard. The 'prisoners' were unexpectedly arrested at home. Upon arriving at the mock prison, they were stripped of their clothes,searched, and given an ID and uniform.They were in prison 24 hours a day and were only allowed 3 supervised toilet trips and 2 hours of reading and writting letters.
The guards grew increasingy tyrranical. They made the prisoners suffer much by asking them for instance,to clean the toilet with bare hands. Five prisoners were released early due to severe distress and the experiment was stopped after 6 days,despite the intentionto continue up to 2 weeks.
This study appears to demonstrate that 'ordinary' students all too easily acted like stereotypes. They even forgot that they were only acting! 'Prison guards' became brutal (probably enoyed their power).
So does this explain what is happening (or happened if true) in abu ghraib prison? Give me all your views and reply. Thanks very much. I am just curious about this topic that's why I posted this up. thanks.
ABU GHRAIB- ZIMBARDO'S EXPERIMENT REPLICATED?
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by egor » Tue Jun 01, 2004 6:38 pm
Here's a story which I can't figure out the meaning of but somehow makes sense, someone told it to me, cos, well, it happened to them.
One day this someone started working on their uncle's chicken farm with some friends, the chickens were being prepared for slaughtering (loading up in a van), what they had to do was grab them by the legs and put them in a box or something, I forget what they actually had to do. The farmer told them that if they pecked them (and did other ouchy stuff) to just snap their legs, these people were extremely reluctant to do that, however, someway into the job, they became more comfortable and 'professional' if that makes any sense, they snapped the legs when they needed to (but still reluctantly), an hour later and they were killing the chickens, crushing their heads, torturing them, and throwing them around. It became as extreme as that.
Not sure what my point there was.
Also, there was a film made on that experiment, it was conducted in Germany, correctumundo? Unfortunately, I believe the film made ALOT of things up (in the film it depicted a rape, several murders, etc.) I'm rather dissappointed that they had to do that. HOWEVER, it made me understand or made me think I understood more of what went on, its partly the chicken scenario, but, in the film, the guards themselves had superiors, or a superior, to be more precise. The prisoners were okay to begin with, but, sooner or later, they didn't quite rebel, but, did little things to annoy the guards. Of course, the guards thought that this would cost them their money, if they didn't keep them under control, so, the guards became more extreme, the prisoners rebelled more (one in particular) until it all went horribly wrong. And this all happened (in the film) because the person running the experiment went away for a few days and didn't give clear instructions, because he wanted to see what ways the guards could come up with to control the prisoners. Maybe this lack of contact also happened in Abu Ghraib? I mean, put aside debate over whether superiors actually authorised the torture, it has happened many a time, is the leadership to blame? I mean, if you tell people to 'keep the prisoners in order' and leave them alone for a while, surely the lack of rules set in stone is bound to let the guards imagination's run wild as to what is wanted of them?
Okay, now I'm talking b*****ks, I'll keep quiet now.
One day this someone started working on their uncle's chicken farm with some friends, the chickens were being prepared for slaughtering (loading up in a van), what they had to do was grab them by the legs and put them in a box or something, I forget what they actually had to do. The farmer told them that if they pecked them (and did other ouchy stuff) to just snap their legs, these people were extremely reluctant to do that, however, someway into the job, they became more comfortable and 'professional' if that makes any sense, they snapped the legs when they needed to (but still reluctantly), an hour later and they were killing the chickens, crushing their heads, torturing them, and throwing them around. It became as extreme as that.
Not sure what my point there was.
Also, there was a film made on that experiment, it was conducted in Germany, correctumundo? Unfortunately, I believe the film made ALOT of things up (in the film it depicted a rape, several murders, etc.) I'm rather dissappointed that they had to do that. HOWEVER, it made me understand or made me think I understood more of what went on, its partly the chicken scenario, but, in the film, the guards themselves had superiors, or a superior, to be more precise. The prisoners were okay to begin with, but, sooner or later, they didn't quite rebel, but, did little things to annoy the guards. Of course, the guards thought that this would cost them their money, if they didn't keep them under control, so, the guards became more extreme, the prisoners rebelled more (one in particular) until it all went horribly wrong. And this all happened (in the film) because the person running the experiment went away for a few days and didn't give clear instructions, because he wanted to see what ways the guards could come up with to control the prisoners. Maybe this lack of contact also happened in Abu Ghraib? I mean, put aside debate over whether superiors actually authorised the torture, it has happened many a time, is the leadership to blame? I mean, if you tell people to 'keep the prisoners in order' and leave them alone for a while, surely the lack of rules set in stone is bound to let the guards imagination's run wild as to what is wanted of them?
Okay, now I'm talking b*****ks, I'll keep quiet now.
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by Anthony Jacquin » Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:43 pm
The common overview of Phillip Zimbardo's prison experiment (1973) is that the guards all got more and more carried away in there positions and to an extent the prisoners more compliant. This simplification of what actually occured obscures the most important undertsanding we can take from the experiment.
What actually occured is that one of the guards with his own agenda from the start decided to push the boundaries as far as possible. He instigated and pushed forward the abuse. The majority of guards never actually got involved in much more than verbal abuse. However they did stand by and 'guard' everything that occured. Collective responsibility broke down resulting in a collective blindness to the abuse. The assumption that someone else will act or that if they don't act it doesnt matter if I don't either.
Rather than assuming there is an inevitable slide from students to brutal stereotypes, I think it more likely that a few idiots got carried away and everyone else turned away. The surge in stories since the photographs came out suggests this is the case. When you combine this blindness with the structure of a strict hierachy of leadership you really do have the potential for huge numbers of people going completely mute.
Ant
What actually occured is that one of the guards with his own agenda from the start decided to push the boundaries as far as possible. He instigated and pushed forward the abuse. The majority of guards never actually got involved in much more than verbal abuse. However they did stand by and 'guard' everything that occured. Collective responsibility broke down resulting in a collective blindness to the abuse. The assumption that someone else will act or that if they don't act it doesnt matter if I don't either.
Rather than assuming there is an inevitable slide from students to brutal stereotypes, I think it more likely that a few idiots got carried away and everyone else turned away. The surge in stories since the photographs came out suggests this is the case. When you combine this blindness with the structure of a strict hierachy of leadership you really do have the potential for huge numbers of people going completely mute.
Ant
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