Interpersonal Behavior

And
Team Dynamics

ASSIGNMENT II
STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

1. Why did the dynamics happen in the experiment between the guards and prisoners?
(Especially, reflecting on the importance of Role and Power in group dynamics)
Lord Action rightly said, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The
statement is reflected in the behaviour of the boys who were playing the role of guards;
people tend to lose their sense of morality as their power increases.
The prominent reasons for why the dynamics happened between the guards and prisoners:
 The boys playing the role of guards tried to imitate what the actual guards would
have done to the prisoners in prison.
 They lost their conscious and personal identity and were more inclined towards
playing their role of a hostile, stringent guard.
 An interesting observation is that not even a single guard out of the 11 thought the
other way and came forward to stop the violence against the prisoners, given the
fact that all these people selected for the roles were very mature in their personal
lives. This shows how they acted in unison, with a common goal of torturing the
prisoners.
 Though they were instructed to do whatever was necessary to maintain law and
order, but they went a step ahead and started humiliating the prisoners, which they
were not even asked to do, just because they had the power to do it; this shows how
 a human would react in an environment when there is no one to overlook his
actions and the way he can misuse his powers.
 The reaction by the prisoners was quite natural; anyone who was tortured would
try to resist and defend themselves in whatever way possible.
 The common goal of prisoners to protect themselves from the hostility initially made
them act in unison.
 But when the new prisoner 8612 came and went on a hunger strike, none of the
other prisoners turned up to help him; this shows how an individual naturally acts to
keep himself above everyone else.
2. What could have been done to avoid it?
The purpose of the experiment was to find out the reason behind the brutality of guards in
American prisons. But instructing the prisoners to act in a particular way destroyed the very
purpose of the experiment, that was to figure it whether it was the sadistic personalities of
the prisoners or the prison environment that turned them aggressive and domineering.
The situation could have been avoided in several ways:
 The guards should have been advised to be strict only when required and should not
be given the freedom to act brutally on their will.
 When the prisoner 8612 and 819 complained and pleaded to leave, Zimbardo would
have taken action against the guards to check why the situation had arrived rather
than asking the prisoners to try to adjust to the environment.
 Even though physical violence was not allowed, the guards subjected the prisoners
to physical violence, and no action was taken against it.
 The guards were made to wear sunglasses; the concept behind the usage of
sunglasses is that they can’t see the eyes of the prisoners. Hence, when you are not
able to see someone’s eyes, you lose the sense of humility towards that person, i.e.,
the use of sunglasses accentuated the guards’ hostile action, which could have been
avoided.
 The role of the prisoner superintendent and an observer should have been played by
two different persons, rather than Zimbardo playing both roles, who most of the
times handled the situation with a superintendent view.