Acacia Fraternity
State College, PA:
What We Can Learn from the Stanford Prison Experiment
You may have heard about the Stanford Prison Experiment in an Introduction to Psychology class or from the movie that came out this past summer. It is one of the most controversial studies in the history of social psychology and it can teach us a lot about what drives someone to haze.
Let’s start with an overview of the experiment. In 1971, researchers at Stanford University wanted to learn about the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard by creating a simulated prison. College men volunteered to participate by answering an advertisement. They were interviewed and assessed to…
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