The Stanford prison study was conducted by researcher Phillip Zimbardo and co. A local newspaper displayed an advertisement calling for volunteers in a study of psychological affects of life in prison. The researchers wanted to find the affects of power being a prisoner or prison guard. To do this, they set up a simulated prison and carefully noted the behaviour within.
With the help from the Californian police, a squad car swept through the suburbs picking up the volunteered applicants as part of a mass arrest for armed robbery, and burglary. The applicant was picked up at his home/dwelling and put through the necessary procedures as would a criminal of a real crime.
More than 70 applicants answered the advertisement in the paper and all had diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with a history of crime or drug abuse, mental illness, and psychological issues. This narrowed down the group to 24.
The group of average, healthy, intelligent, middle class men were divided into two groups by a flip of a coin; half were assigned to be guards, the other half to be prisoners. At the beginning of the experiment there were no differences between prisoners and guards, at this time.
The prison, of which the experiment was conducted, was in the basement of the Stanford University recording systems were set up within the cells to monitor their behaviour as the study was carried out. There were no windows no clocks nothing to pass time or judge time. An intercom system allowed the prisoners to be recorded as well.
With in the prison each prisoner was systematically searched stripped naked. They underwent a part of degradation procedure in part to humiliate prisoners, and in a sense make the power hold over prisoners by the guards seem more daunting than anything else. The prisoners were issued uniforms, on the front and back were his prison I.D. On each ankle was a chain and ball to be worn at all times.
