Dr King Immoral Individual Analysis

In “The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism,” Marianne Szegedy-Maszak informs the reader of the situation United States guards caused against Iraqi detainees. Under Bush’s presidency, United States soldiers brought physical abuse and humiliation upon the Abu Ghraib Prison. Szegedy-Maszak briefly analyzes the situation and compares the abuse to further scientific experiments in which test obedience. One of the experiments was the topic of another article titled, “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” written by Philip G. Zimbardo. In his work, Zimbardo discusses the experiment he held at Stanford University. A group of male students from the university were paid to participate in an experiment held in a mock prison. Half of the group

Martin Luther King Jr. was a well-known advocate for justice and civil liberties. His biggest devotion was for equality of African-American citizens, usually revealed in marches or peaceful demonstrations; in Birmingham, however, one of such protests rendered King and hundreds of his fellow protesters in jail. From that cell, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which he proposed the idea that “it is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture but…groups tend to be more immoral than individuals” (par. 12). Regarding King’s quote, it could be ammended to state that groups are more likely to influence the upkeep of a practice of privilege while individuals hold more power over their own decisions.

Likewise Zimbardo’s (1971) experiment, studying the way ‘prisoners’ and ‘guards’ interacted, demonstrated similar ethical failings, such as consent gained without individuals being made fully aware of the involvements; physical, emotional and psychological harm subjected; violation of rights, including privacy, respect, confidentiality and the ability to withdraw (). Fascinated by the volume of ordinary individuals who executed terrible things to others during WWII, Zimbardo predicted that all people, even the good, had the potential to conduct malevolence when sited in the correct environment (Haney et al, 1973). In a mock prison participants were recruited to play a role, half as prisoners and the rest as guards. Both were dressed accordingly, with the guards wearing a uniform with mirrored sunglasses which promotes anonymity as their emotions are obscured, but yet denotes their position of power and authority. According to Zimbardo (2000) these ‘conditions of deindividuation’ allow for the facilitation of evil. Subsequently it becomes acceptable to enforce measures which degrade prisoners of their self-respect, including being stripped, deloused and ordered to carry a chain around their ankle, whilst the mandatory wearing of a smock and a cap made from a stocking demoralized them as it impacted upon their masculinity. Additionally, not only were prisoners assigned a number by which they were referred to, denying them of their identity, but each area of their daily

Martin Luther King claims in “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” that “it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their unjust posture, but...groups tend to be more immoral than individuals” (paragraph 12). The stated claim holds true based on knowledge and observation of real world events, and through personal experience.

In this paper I will illustrate how the lessons learned from the Stanford Experiment apply to understanding the dynamics of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. The Stanford Experiment demonstrates how social influence can persuade one’s behavior and shape their conformity. The experiment and the prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib exemplify the power of authority by utilizing their positions and uniforms to control and overrule the prisoners.

Zimbardo (1971) wanted to complete the experiment as they agreed for 2 weeks, but on the sixth day it was stopped. Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D. brought in to conduct interviews with the guards and prisoners, strongly objected when she saw the prisoners being abused by the guards. Filled with outrage, she said, "It's terrible what you are doing to these boys!" (Musen, K. & Zimbardo, 1991).

Every time there was an increase of violence and abuse as a reaction to the prisoner’s attitudes of suffering. As time went by, the punishment was stronger. Prisoners reacted like wanting to do harm to others. There was a very important conclusion from the person responsible of the experiment when he found that he became a part of his experiment and began to play the role of the chief of the prison. That was when he noticed he had crossed the line.

The guards abused and took advantage of the prisoners. The prisoners were so miss treated that a few of them left before the study was suspended. After six days the whole experiment, which was supposed to last 14 days, was ended because Zimbardo finally realized how unethical it was to keep the experiment going. Looking at the ethics of the experiment some were followed and some were not.

Just imagine yourself taking a hard test and you see everyone cheating. What would you do? Would you also cheat if you know that everyone is doing the same thing? In the Stanford prison experiment, Dr.Zimbardo chose the people who will be in the experiment so carefully and all the students who participated in the experiment did not have any psychological problems. Throughout the experiment, everyone treated the prisoners differently. The first type of guards were the tough but fair guards, then there were the guards who felt sorry for the prisoners, and the last group was the sadistic guards. The ones who were enjoying humiliating and abusing the prisoners. Shockingly, none of the guards spoke out and said that we need to stop what we are doing to the prisoners. Everyone was not taking responsibility because they were in one big group. Same thing happened in Abu Ghraib when guards were torturing the Iraqi prisoners and they took pictures of what happened as if they were proud of what they did. Being in a large group and having the sense of anonymity freed both the guards in the Stanford prison experiment and in Abu Ghraib from any personal responsibility for what they

Although there many articles and chapters the experiment, Zimbardo had a really good reason to write this book and it was the prisoners at Abu Ghraibs. He worked closely with the trial as he was an expert witness to Ivan Frederick, a policeman at the prison. His transformation from good to evil was similar to the the guards of the the Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo thought he was charged unfairly and wanted to prove that it was the system that made them act the way they did and not that they were a few “bad apples.”

Zimbardo, the conductor of the experiment that took place in the prison, believed that the experiment showed how people’s personalities change when given positions of authority. Although, he acknowledged that some guards did try to change the

This project was done ethically without damaging any of the students. The purpose of the Stanford Experiment was to look into the psychological effects of a person when given power. Based on the relationship between prisoners and prison guards, Zimbardo tested twenty-four college students when they were given either the role prisoner or prison guard. Within hours of beginning the experiment, the pseudo-guards began mocking and harassing the “prisoners.” By the second day, physical violence broke out and mental insanity soon developed within the prisoners.

In this essay I will talk about the torturing of prisoners in Abu Ghraib. I will also write about the Stanley Milgrim Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. All of these relate to one of the topics we have covered this term.

When we see people doing bad things we assume it is because they are bad people. Social Psychologist Philip Zimbardo would argue that this isn’t true. In April 2004 disturbing and graphic pictures surfaced, showing American soldiers mentally and physically abusing Iraqi prisoners held at the Abu Ghraib prison located in Bagdad. Looking at the photos that was surfaced, it looks strikingly familiar to those in the Stanford prison experiment that was done many years ago. The prisoners had bags over their heads and were subjected to all kinds of sexual and inhumane humiliation. The military went on the defence saying “those officers were a few bad apples.” To understand why the military soldiers at the Abu Grahib prison abused the Iraqi prisoners, we need to look back at the lessons of Philip Zimbardo’s prison experiment and Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority experiment. The results of these experiments showed that there are a set of social psychological factors that can make ordinary people do things they could have never imagined doing. It shows how people respond when placed in cruel environments without clear rules, do bad things. I will look at Zimbardo’s case of ‘Good apples in bad barrels.’ And I will try to understand what lead to the abuses that occurred within the walls of Abu Ghraib.

Throughout history there have been hundreds upon hundreds of influential figures, although not all of them have devoted their career to understanding the human mind. Of the few who have devoted their time to this hugely important task, Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo’s theories and experiments have made him stand out, and differentiate himself from the rest in his profession. Zimbardo 's area of expertise in the field of psychology is social psychology, the branch that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual. Zimbardo may be most well known for his Stanford Prison experiment, an experiment that seems to address the definition of social psychology perfectly. In this experiment Zimbardo had clinically healthy and sane people volunteer for the position of a prison guard or a prisoner and see how they behaved, for fifteen dollars a day. The prison was actually the basement of the Stanford psychology building, where the experiment would take place for a planned 14 days. As said before, the prisoners and guards were all tested as mentally healthy, and for the sake of the experiment were arrested, and processed on a random morning, August 14th 1971. (Zimbardo, 2007, p. 23). The results of this experiment are outstanding, shocking, and somewhat disturbing, making this one of, if not, the most unethical psychological experiments. Although the experiment is considered wildly immoral, Zimbardo is one of the most influential psychologists