10. After the study,
how do you think the prisoners and guards felt when they saw each other in the
same civilian clothes again and saw their prison reconverted to a basement
laboratory hallway?
I
think that the experience that these subjects were put through would quite
alter their feelings when it came to seeing other subjects from the experiment
and the place it took place. I feel as if those were participated as the guards
would feel a sense of guilt when seeing those who acted as prisoners. Many of
the guards had said that they had never thought they could behave in such a
way. For the prisoners seeing the guards again, I feel as if the emotion is
more conflicting because while they know the real life person is nothing like
the guard from the experiment and they do not think of them any less, there
will still be a reaction seeing them. When it comes to the basement, since it
is a place they spent so much time and their first experience with it was
probably when it was in its converted state, the memories from how it looked as
a prison and the memories garnered there would affect how they perceive that
space. The perception of how they viewed the other subjects can easily be
altered by replacing those memories with new ones of their “normal” behaviors and
personalities, yet the feeling that comes with living in a space may not so
easily be changed.
1 comment:
Q: After the study, how do you think the prisoners and guards felt when they saw each other in the same civilian clothes again and saw their prison reconverted to a basement laboratory hallway?
A: At the conclusion of the experiment, I believe the students probably felt awkward interacting with one another in classes and in public. Perhaps the guards felt ashamed of how they treated the prisoners, their fellow classmates. Perhaps the prisoners still felt cowed in the presence of those who treated them so poorly. However, as stated by Dr. Zimbardo, there were no long lasting effects of the experiment on the lives of the participants. This does not mean that, at first, it may have been difficult to adjust back into the student role from the guard/prisoner roles.
The video we watched in class showed interviews with the students not long after the experiment was put to rest. 'Prisoner 416,' who had rebelled against the system through hunger strike, sat down with a guard to discuss the whys of the situation. He asked him why he decided to treat the prisoners in a degrading manner as opposed to a tough but fair stance. The guard responded that he had been conducting his own little experiments, seeing how far he could push the prisoners before they broke. Though he later wondered at his behavior, not having realized he could act in such sadistic ways, he does not think what he did was harmful, something with which prisoner 416 disagreed.
Walking through that hallway again, after having lived there in a state of confinement for days, would probably be hard to handle at first. Especially since their continuing psychology classes were most likely held in those laboratories, the same rooms where they were isolated from the outside world and verbally abused. No matter the power of the roles, I'm sure it was difficult to adjust back into their normal behaviors and routines.
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