A classic psychology experiment was conducted by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University. The experiment is described at the website www.prisonexp.org/. Visit the website; if it is no longer operative, try an Internet search on “Zimbardo” and “prison” to find information about this study.
a. Briefly describe the study and its findings.
b. The website has a number of discussion questions related to the study. Here is one of them: “Was it ethical to do this study? Was it right to trade the suffering experienced by participants for the knowledge gained by the research?” Discuss these questions.
c. Another question asked at the website is, “How do the ethical dilemmas in this re­search compare with the ethical issues raised by Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments [described in Example 25.1]? Would it be better if these studies had never been done?” Discuss these questions.