After watching the videos of this experiment I don't think you could call it unethical. Dr. Philip Zimbardo was up front with those participating, and in fact involved himself at a level consistent with what he expected of the other participants. This caused him to have similar reactions where the lines became blurry. The students participated for financial gain. Due to the fact that the environment was so realistic that caused them to begin to believe they were in a real situation. I think that was necessary in order for the participants to have as real a reaction as possible. If we don't make experiments as realistic as possible, then we can't trust the results.
It's interesting that the guards only were involved 8 hours a day, and then got to go back to reality, yet still blurred the lines between reality and the fact that they were participating in an experiment. It was also very interesting that they could have quit at any time, but did not. Was it because they became so involved, or because they wanted to be paid in the end? Some of those interviewed made a good point about the costumes really making it easy to fall into role playing. This was very interesting!
Kylie:
ReplyDeleteI too was wondering why some of the participants did not quit. Especially those that had to be removed prematurely.
Upon further research on the experiment I came across several sources that said some of the "inmates" did not quit simply because they did no longer realize that this was option. As you mentioned-- the lines between reality and experiment blurred.
H