 |  |  | Posted by Joshua
May 21, 2012, 6:13 pm |  |
-Lengthy Reply-
Dear Helmut,
The Zimbardo study is full of biases. The subjects knew that they were only in a prison simulation, while real prisoners do not have the luxury of retaining this comforting fact. True prisoners remain incarcerated at all times; they cannot escape into the subconscious knowledge of the occurring experiment. Often, in a real prison, we do not hold guards accountable for malicious actions against prisoners, or film them. Sometimes, prisoners live in unsanitary conditions; hence, they do not receive the attention that one needs to illuminate their situation to outside sources, due to their physical conditions. Prisoners lose many of their rights and social respect/tolerance of and from others.
The prisoner near the end of the experiment who said that he was sick, and was eventually released, was quick to accept the fact that the prison was just an experimental atmosphere. A real prisoner remains imprisoned, no matter what his or her health condition(s) may be.
The leading psychologist for the Zimbardo study lost critical distance by personally stepping into his role as the prison manager; data from the study conveys biases accordingly. He manipulates data in a manner that furthers the experimenter’s confirmation bias. The experimenter has qualities that degrade his data, such as convolution, bias, and reference to personal opinion.
If anything, this experiment sugarcoats a cyclically wretched prison system. Receiving poor treatment from guards is difficult, but in a real prison system the inmates are often pitted against one another ethnically, violently, and sexually.
I agree that a true-to-life imprisonment experiment would break many laws of ethics.
--Joshua
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