The experiment conducted by Professor Philip Zimbardo in Stanford University California 1971. Professor Zimbardo want prove that how people can be affected by the environment. Good people in evil environment. The experiment was mad for two weeks, but after six days the experiment was interrupted because of ethical issue. Please watch this documentary for more information about Stanford prison experiment;
Also you can obtain more information about the experiment by clicking this link:
In Stanford prison experiment, Professor Zimbardo had used human to conduct his research. That was unethical side of that experiment. The line between experiment and real prison become fuzzy one day after the experiment had started. The prisoners had gone through real psychological abuse. In resent day, scientists are not allowed to use animal for medical experiment anymore, it is illegal, but in that experiment used human not animal. The author, in his interview, admits that he interrupted his experiment because those young students were in psychological pain and he can stop that.
Current environment affect person’s behavior, it is obvious, but not more than past environment. The environment that the person is grew up in. I think the past environment can affect person’s behavior more than current environment. This part had been ignored in the experiment and also when the Professor was trying to link his experiment to Abu Ghraib. I build my argument based on three year experience on the ground in Iraq with the armed force and I have been in many, formal and informal, discussion about that particular incident and many other incidents like Haditha killings. To satisfy my curiosity, nothing else, I approached many members of armed force, during the war, the solders with violence tendency. I noticed there was one common thing among all those people, it was their background.
The participant of Abu Ghraib, the guards, they all were members in military police unit. I will discuss biography of two of those people to see how they were affected by their background. Lynndie England, the female figure in the Abu Ghraib incident, she born and raised poor, low educated family from Kentucky, her father was railroad worker. Lynndie never attend any college. Another participant of Abu Ghraib is Charles A. Graner; Mr. Graner also was born from poor and law educated family at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he dropped from two year college. Charles was correction officer in 1994 at Fayette County Prison; he was accused of putting mace in a new guard's coffee as a joke, causing him to be sick. In 1998, a prisoner accused Graner and three other guards of planting a razor blade in his food, causing his mouth to bleed when he ate it. Lynndie England got pregnant and she stated that the father is Charles Graner, they were having sex in front of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib and they were filmed.
These are the main characters of Abu Ghraib; my question for everyone is what kind of action is expected from these two characters? What kind of girl allows herself to be videoed while she has sex? I hope that everyone will participate in the answer.
To obtain more information about Abu Ghraib please click the link below:
To obtain more information about Haditha killing please click the link below:
Interview with Lynndie England:
Sam: You've provided a thoughtful discussion. There were some students who felt this was unethical, and others who reasoned that the subjects could have left the experimental situation any time that they wanted. Richard Bobys
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