The Stanford prison study actually took place in a real prison. The participant was ordinary college student, and half of them was randomly picked either for a guard role or a prisoner role. The participants who was supposed to play the prisoner role got actually arrested and threw in jail. Zumbardo planned to study the situation for two weeks but since the research turned into a sort of catastrophe, it only lasted 6 days. The prisoners was treated in the same or a lower level than animals. They were humiliated, and mistreated. The study proved that anybody can commit the most awful things, even the most ordinary ones. Human is equally capable of good and evil, it all depend on the situation that they are put in. This study is unethical, I think that in a study the right of humans should never be forgotten or neglected. In my point of view, in order to make it more ethical and safer I would have placed some sort of supervisor who would have been able to analyze things and keep things in discipline. Zumbardo let the guards take the lead and they were able to do all sort of things that crossed their minds. I think it was a mistake.
