In need of a short discussion reply to classmates post.

Classmates discussion post:

Stanford Prison Experiment

What does it mean to be ethical or unethical? What it means to be ethical is to follow popular social standards and such activities are acceptable to the community. Unethical behavior is the complete opposite of ethical behavior. In section 3 Human Relations in the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct it talks about 3 serious actions. Unfair discrimination, other harassment, and avoiding harm all state on how a psychologist should try to not knowingly harm or unfairly discriminate their subjects. The Stanford Prison Experiment presents unethical behavior by going against all three of those actions.

A psychological experiment was conducted by Dr. Philip Zimbardo to evaluate human behavior. The experiment was supposed to last 2 weeks but was ended only after 6 days due to the actions of the participants (Ramji, 2015). The experiment was done with 150 college students with the scenario explained beforehand (Le Texier, 2019). The students were split up into to prisoners and prison guards chosen at random. This was key in getting accurate data on how people would act when put in positions of authority. The type of personality each student had at the beginning of the experiment didn't matter it was said they had completely changed even on the first day. The guards were to be aggressive while the prisoners were to rebel or submit (Le Texier, 2019). It turned out that the students that were given the power to be aggressive guards liked the power and abused it. The students acting as prison guards were becoming so aggressive and abusive that by the sixth day of the experiment it had to be stopped. Even though they were good students but when given the opportunity they became unethical in their decisions towards other students. Some of the students at the end of the experiment said they had no regrets on what they had done to the other students acting as prisoners.

This study was unethical in three big ways according to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. All three come from the Human Relations section and the first is unfair discrimination. The students were in a work-related activity and were engaged in unfair discrimination related to socioeconomic status. Since they were split up into prisoners and guards their status' differed making the experiment unethical. The second, is in the other harassment category since the psychologist engaged in behavior that was demeaning to people with whom they went to school with using socioeconomic status making it unethical. The final reason I think this study was unethical is from the avoiding harm section. Where it states that the psychologists are to take rational steps to prevent injuring their clients/patients or in this case students, and since some were harmed, this situation was unethical.

In conclusion, all of us are responsible for each other well-being and should hold each other accountable to make ethical decisions. Dr. Philip Zimbardo was lucky no was seriously injured during his experiment. This experiment I believe was to prove that us as human beings change when we have a certain amount of power. I disagree if that is so, this is why each job has an interview process and standards have to be met to get the right people for the job in the position. The Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct is in place for a reason and should be followed.