Movie Review

Taylors University

Lim Peidi
0324272

Foundation in Natural & Built Environment

January 2016

PSY30203
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

The movie I have watched is Stanford Prison Experiment. The movie is based on a real
psychology experiment that is carried out in 1971.The experiment was conducted in Jordan
Hall by Professor Philip Zimbardo. He chose college students as his experimenters and
separated them into 2 groups, namely The Guards and The Prisons. The aim of his
experiment is to study the behaviour of the guard in prison is due to their personalities or the
prison environment. . Hence, he created the prison environment for the experiment. He
followed all the procedure by arresting the prisoners and let the guards to have their
uniform. The students got into their conditions very fast as the prisoners thought they were
really put into a prison and the guards think they ruled the prison. The guards kept on
torturing the prisoners and started to rule the prison in their own way by not notifying
Professor Philip the uncontrolled condition of the prisoners. 3 of the prisoners got into
emotional distress and they had to be released earlier from the experiment. Professor Philip
shut down the experiment as the condition is getting out of control after 6 days of the
experiment. The purpose of this assignment is to relate psychological theories learned to the
movie.
One of the psychology concept learned from this movie is Social Contagion. As the college
students were separated into Prisons and Guards, they played their role in the
experiment. At first, the guards were very scared in treating the prisoners badly. After the first
guard manage to control the prisoners by treating them cruelly, the others followed his
behaviour. The other guards started to imitate the first guards behaviour. The information,
ideas and behaviours of the first guard was spread to the other guards. This phenomena shows
that the psychology concept, Social Contagion did exist in this experiment. People are easily
influenced by each other.
The second psychology concept that is found is this movie is Cognitive Dissonance. The
prisoners get into this situation by going to the early stage of depressed after they thought that
they were in the real prison but not an experiment. In the movie, the prisoners thought that
this is just a psychology experiment but they do not like the way how the guards treat them.
So, prisoner 8612 found his way to meet the psychologist. After he met the psychologists, the
way they treated him let him thought that they will not release him. He thought he was in a
real prison which opposed with what he knew It is just an experiment. The situation
which was inconsistent with what he believed made him gone crazy and gave sign of
depression by talking to the psychologist through the camera placed in the prison.

The last psychology concept that I found in this movie is Operant Conditioning. The
attitude of the guards in this experiment formed by what they know about the prison guards prisons guards are the bosses of the prisoners. Therefore, they acted like the prisons guard
by treating the prisoners cruelly. The consequences of the guards behaviour is the prisoners
slowly adapted to the prison environment and they also adapted to the way how they
should be treated. In their mind set, they thought that they should always follow the
instruction of the correctional commander. The first day, some of the prisoners especially
prisoner 8612 did not obey the rules and instructions given by the guards. Hence, he was
treated badly by them. Others prisoners saw that and started to follow the instructions given.
This is because they scared that they will be treated as the same way as how prisoner 8612
was treated. The behaviour of the prisoners were controlled by the consequences n how the
guards react to prisoner 8612.
The movie clearly shows what actually happened during the experiment. The experiment
proved that the behaviour of the prisons guards are due to the environment created. In my
opinion, the movie is good for psychology studies. The emotion of the guards and the
prisoners were truly shown through the actors acting. I think that Professor Philip Zimbardo
should run this experiment again by changing the rules for the guards Do not show up to
meet the guards and the prisoners when the experiment is running. Maybe, this will affect the
experiments result as Professor Zimbardo is not controlling the experiment as shown in the
movie. He was a reason that the prisoners undergo depression. This can be proved through
how Professor Zimbardo and his psychologists team talked to the prisoners. After their talk,
they are giving more control power to the guards and decrease the rights of the prisoners.