Archive for the ‘References’ Category
Market Equilibrium
With our understanding of demand and supply, we can now show how the decisions of buyers of corn interact with the decisions of sellers to determine the equilibrium price and quantity of corn. In the table in Figure 3.6 , columns 1 and 2 repeat the market supply of corn (from the table in Figure 3.5 ), and columns 2 and 3 repeat the market demand for corn (from the table in Figure 3.3 ). We assume this is a competitive market so that neither buyers nor sellers can set the price. Equilibrium Price and Quantity We are looking for the equilibrium price and equilibrium quantity. The equilibrium price (or marketclearing price ) is the price where the intentions of buyers and sellers match. It is the price where quantity demanded equals quantity supplied. The table in Figure 3.6 reveals that at $3, and only at that price , the number of bushels of corn that sellers wish to sell (7000) is identical to the number consumers want to buy (also 7000). At $3 and 7000 bushels of corn, there is neither a shortage nor a surplus of corn. So 7000 bushels of corn is the equilibrium quantity : the quantity demanded and quantity supplied at the equilibrium price in a competitive market. Graphically, the equilibrium price is indicated by the intersection of the supply curve and the demand curve in Figure 3.6 (Key Graph). (The horizontal axis now measures both quantity demanded and quantity supplied.) With neither a shortage nor a surplus at $3, the market is in equilibrium, meaning “in balance” or “at rest.” Competition among buyers and among sellers drives the price to the equilibrium price; once there, it remains unless it is subsequently disturbed by changes in demand or supply (shifts of the curves). To better understand the uniqueness of the equilibrium price, let’s consider other prices. At any above-equilibrium price, quantity supplied exceeds quantity demanded. For example, at the $4 price, sellers will offer 10,000 bushels of corn, but buyers will purchase only 4000. The $4 price encourages sellers to offer lots of corn but discourages many consumers from buying it. The result is a surplus (or excess supply ) of 6000 bushels. If corn sellers produced them all, they would find themselves with 6000 unsold bushels of corn. Surpluses drive prices down. Even if the $4 price existed temporarily, it could not persist. The large surplus would prompt competing sellers to lower the price to encourage buyers to take the surplus off their hands. As the price fell, the incentive to produce corn would decline and the incentive for consumers to buy corn would increase. As shown in Figure 3.6 , the market would move to its equilibrium at $3. Any price below the $3 equilibrium price would create a shortage; quantity demanded would exceed quantity supplied. Consider a $2 price, for example. We see both from column 2 of the table and from the demand curve in Figure 3.6 that quantity demanded exceeds quantity supplied at that price. The result is a shortage (or excess demand ) of 7000 bushels of corn. The $2 price discourages sellers from devoting resources to corn and encourages consumers to desire more bushels than are available. The $2 price cannot persist as the equilibrium price. Many consumers who want to buy corn at this price will not obtain it. They will express a willingness to pay more than $2 to get corn. Competition among these buyers will drive up the price, eventually to the $3 equilibrium level. Unless disrupted by changes of supply or demand, this $3 price of corn will continue to prevail.
References
Gene One Scenario
Reference Page Entry
University of Phoenix. (). Gene One Scenario [Computer Software]. Retrieved July 26, 2009, from University of Phoenix, Simulation, LDR 531.
In-Text Citation
- [Insert the paraphrased material] (University of Phoenix, ).
- In the University of Phoenix simulation (), [Insert the paraphrased material].
- “[Insert the quotation]” (University of Phoenix, , ).
Gene One
COMPANY OVERVIEW
In 1996, Gene One entered the biotech industry with groundbreaking gene technology that eradicated disease in tomatoes and potatoes. As a result, farmers no longer needed to use pesticides when growing these plants and consumers were pleased to buy homegrown products untainted by chemicals. The win-win situation helped Gene One grow to a $400 million company in just eight short years.
Accordingly, sharply rising stock indices on Wall Street indicate a growing interest in biotechnology. And leadership changes at the Food and Drug Administration are further enhancing investor confidence in the industry. At Gene One, the CEO and his Board believe that in order to keep pace with demand and realize conservative annual growth targets of 40 percent, Gene One is going to have to go public within the next three years. The time seems right, but the company needs IPO capital for new development, advertisement, and marketing if it is to remain successful.
Working toward a 36-month maximum deadline, the CEO and his Board have devised a clear strategy with the help of key members in the investment community. It is their hope that implementing it will help Gene One realize its growth targets, establish the company as a strong competitor and show Wall Street that Gene One has the leadership and organizational capabilities to succeed as a public entity.
THE PLAYERS
Don Ruiz, Chief Executive Officer: At age 37, Don became a young entrepreneur when he recruited four colleagues to make his brainchild — Gene One — a reality. As CEO and creative force behind Gene One, Don not only brought his extensive technology and industry knowledge to thecompany, but a significant part of the $2 million dollar start-up investment as well. Now, as a $400 million company, Gene One is positioned to realize growth targets that will make it an industry leader. Don is excited about the company’s IPO opportunity, and has engaged his leadership team, as well as an external consulting firm, to develop a sound strategy to ensure that Gene One not only serves the public but leaves a legacy of his work.
Michelle Houghton, Chief Financial Officer: Part of the start-up five, Michelle invested everything she had into Gene One and, as a result, feels a strong sense of ownership and emotional attachment to the company. Don and Michelle share a solid working relationship and friendship; in fact, with their spouses, they socialize often. Reserved and quiet, Michelle is often mistaken for a pushover when in truth, she is passionate about issues that put the company at risk and has been very successful in securing funding from government and private investors. At 35, Michelle had never before directed Finance in a large corporation or been involved in an IPO; nonetheless, she has earned a credible reputation with the leadership team, the Board, the FDA leadership and the government.
Charles Jones, Marketing Officer: Two years after Gene One’s start-up, Don recruited 35-year-old Charles because of his reputation for “smart” risk-taking and his biotechnology connections. Don saw him as the perfect person to develop and implement Gene One marketing strategy. Self-confident and moral, Charles easily garners trust for himself and the company. He has no personal investment in Gene One, but his professional pride motivates him to work hard at defining products that will sell, and creating a Gene One brand image that is synonymous with technology innovation, future of America, potential for major economic returns, etc. But Charles likes to focus on the big picture rather than the details, which means his efforts to design and implement a marketing infrastructure have yet to be completed.
Teri Robertson, Chief Technology Officer: Part of the original start-up team, and Don’s niece, 37-year-old Teri has a world-renowned reputation; it was her doctoral research that led to the genetic breakthrough discovery that Gene One’s success is built on, and she holds a number of patents pertaining to it. A scientist at heart, Teri is highly competent with a passion and talent for technology research and development. Though Charles involves her in marketing to a degree, he recognizes where her talents lie and, most often, leaves her to them. That suits Teri just fine; Gene One has become her life.
Greg Thoman, Chief Human Resources Officer: Six years ago, at age 30, Greg came to Gene One after an eight-year stint at a Human Resources Consulting company. Known for his “can do” attitude, Greg has staffed Gene One with talented researchers and innovative product developers. In the past two years, Gene One’s massive growth has meant thousands of new hires, and Greg has had his hands full with staffing. As a result, he hasn’t had time to focus on developing future talent, or creating a corporate culture conducive to growing the business.
John Kirby, Executive Director Board Member: CEO of Nuke, Inc., a nuclear medicine company, John has spent more than thirty years in the science and technology industry. His expertise has made him an influential member of the industry community and he knows it — when he wants something, he doesn’t take no for an answer.
Susan Wells, Executive Board Member: Serving her second term, 62-year-old Wells is a well-respected Board member with myriad connections in the media and political communities. She’s very thorough and logical, and has been known to reverse decisions at the eleventh hour based on new data received from her vast network of influential friends.
Attention Senior Leadership Team:
I just returned from a Board meeting, and you’ll all be pleased to know that we’ve gotten the go-ahead we need to proceed with the IPO. The Board agreed with us on all counts — the three-year timetable, the 40% growth targets and the need to raise capital and develop new products. I’m very excited about this; I think the time is right and it’s the right thing for Gene One.
That said, I realize that, collectively, we have zero experience with IPOs, so I think it’s critical that we get ourselves a bit of an education about IPOs and begin outlining the steps we need to take as we move through this process. To that end, I’ve set up a two-day, off-site meeting that will give us time to determine what we need to do to realize this opportunity, as well as identify any challenges we might foresee.
I’ve attached the Executive Summary from the Board meeting. I’d like you all to take a look at it before the meeting. Generally, it’s good to have a rep from our financial institution there, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to arrange it in time.
Executive Summary
Don Ruiz
Chief Executive Officer
Gene One
Don
Good Morning! Thanks for rearranging your schedules on such short notice, but now that the Board has given us their approval, I think it’s important to get moving. I trust you’ve all read the strategy outlined in the Executive Summary, so I’d like to use that as a jumping off point, and discuss how we are going to make that strategy — and our growth — a reality.
Michelle
Don, I have some concerns about the timing of our proposal. There was an article on the front page of this morning’s Money section that said investors are going to be much more cautious about biotech investments because of the human genome sequencing scandal. Even though it’s not our company, it’s negative publicity for the industry. How do we overcome that and show that we have the technology and leadership capability for the future? I think that’s paramount.
Don
That’s a good point, Michelle, one I’m sure Teri will consider as she identifies new research areas for us. And we’re off to a good start in combating negative publicity. I’m sure you’ve all seen yesterday’s news release naming Teri as CTO Of The Year!
Michelle
Teri, congratulations. With all this publicity, maybe we should consider getting into the really hot areas with a lot of growth opportunity, like cancer research?
Teri
What’s the matter, Michelle? Not finding enough challenges in finance, so you want to get into research? We’re in the plant research and bio-agriculture industry. I would assume you know that cancer is a whole different business that would require a different set of capabilities from a people perspective and a plant perspective. And it would take over a billion dollars as well as 10 years to complete Phase one, two and three research on a single discovery. Besides, I think we’re here to talk about how we can realize our new strategy, not to debate research focus. We have tremendous opportunities in our area of expertise, but we’re not realizing them. If I produce new technologies and products, you all need to bring them to market. Unfortunately, that’s not always been the case.
Michelle
Well, excuse me!
Charles
Hey you two, lighten up! The meeting just started and already you’re at each other. I think we have enough challenges ahead of us without you adding to them.
Teri
Lighten up? Do you have any idea what it takes to invent new technologies and products? I’ve been working day and night, and I promise you I will develop the two breakthrough technologies committed to in the plan, as well as the innovative products to bring to market. But I won’t listen to sarcastic remarks directed at my successes. I think some support in getting the products marketed and sold would be much more productive, don’t you?
Don
Maybe we all need to lighten up a bit. We need new technologies, and I’m confident Teri will deliver them. Now let’s get back to identifying the key issues and, more importantly, how we will address them.
Greg
Congratulations, Teri. Your award does help build our credibility, but I think we’ll still need more than that. Michelle, given your connections with the government, do you have some additional insight on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act [SOA] enacted after the Enron and WorldCom collapses? If memory serves me, the Act requires that IPO Boards have directors who are independent, and at least one member must have financial experience serving as a CFO or CPA in a firm. Right now, that’s not the case with our Board. I know there were some other requirements, too, so I think one of our concerns is to make sure our Board composition aligns with the Act’s requirements.
Michelle
You’re right, Greg; the SOA has several requirements we’ll have to meet, but I’m still a little concerned about the timing of our registration. I’m not feeling good about it and I don’t want to take the risk. Don, you do realize that if we do this IPO thing, you and I will have to disclose financial statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] prior to the offering and be personally accountable for their accuracy? That’s going to take a lot of time and we’ll no doubt need an external auditor. I’m not releasing any financial statements until I’m absolutely sure that the “I’s” are dotted and the “T’s” are crossed.
Greg
From an HR perspective, there are a couple of things to consider, too. For starters, we need to make sure our executive and Board compensation strategies are squeaky clean. If you read the Money section regularly, I’m sure you’ve read a few stories about compensation issues. Compensation for Board members is shifting from equity to cash, mainly because of new rules and high risk associated with the SOA. I also think we need to examine our top 50 executives to make sure we have the right leadership at our level and at the level below us. Wall Street and the SEC look long and hard at leadership.
Charles
I read the plan, and I think it needs to be a little less vague about how we’re going to realize 40 percent growth. I know Teri’s talented, but can she really identify these two new technologies? We agreed in our proposal that we need to demonstrate growth to impress Wall Street and entice investors, so won’t we need those technologies pretty quickly so we can get them to market and show that growth? What percentage of this growth is Teri going to be accountable for? And what are you going to hold me accountable for through marketing and branding? We need some clarity here.
Greg
I haven’t even mentioned the internal problems that could arise. We need a plan for sharing this news with employees. Staffing will be a nightmare if people panic and start leaving the company because they have doubts that we can pull this off, or because they don’t want to be part of a publicly traded company.
Don
Well, I think we’ve all succeeded in raising issues, but let me remind you of the goals that we all agreed on: We want to grow this business 40 percent per year for the next three years, and we want to find additional funding so we can introduce new products. Going public is our only ticket. It will give us the credibility and capital that come with being a publicly traded company. I would like you all to think of the issues raised here today as bumps, not walls. I have no doubt that this is the right thing to do and it is going to happen, like it or not. Michelle, I will be looking to identify and handle these financial issues. Charles, I’d like you to lead the team in finalizing our marketing and branding plans. Teri, if you could give me some notes outlining your plans for the new technologies, as well as a projected timetable for their completion, I would appreciate that. I’d also like to know what new product lines you and Charles have defined for our current technology. Greg, let’s talk about how we need to communicate this strategy internally, and how you’d like to let Wall Street know that we are without a doubt capable in both leadership and technology. Individually, each of you has made major contributions to this company, contributions that have made Gene One the successful company it is today. But I think if you worked as a team, you could realize even more success. I need your support and commitment if we are to realize our strategy and make this IPO happen. But if it’s not what you want, and if your not wanting it is going to create resistance to our efforts, I will respect that, and support you in your resignation. Do I have your understanding?
Senior Leadership Members
Absolutely!
Of course.
Yes.
Right.
Uh.
Silence.
GENE ONE’S TERI ROBERTSON IS CTO OF THE YEAR
Judges cite brilliant research and societal contributions as selection criteria
Teri Robertson, Chief Technology Officer at Gene One, has just received the CTO Of The Year Award for her work in crop genetic research. With more than 15 years’ research and nearly a dozen patents for new crop varieties, Robertson has made major contributions to both the economy and society.
Robertson’s newest research project seeks to develop five different, genetically modified varieties of tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli, cabbage and spinach that will reach maturity twice as fast as unaltered crops, even in a broader range of soil and weather conditions. This will lead to a nearly 35 percent increase in yield, impacting food volumes worldwide and significantly reducing growth costs.
Perhaps the best is still to come. Robertson believes she is nearing a breakthrough in flavor technology as well, and promises that in the near future, genetically modified crops will taste even better than anything picked from Grandma’s garden!
MONEY SECTION WHAT’S THE WORD?
Word is that Gene One, a $400 million biotech company known for its breakthrough technology in eliminating crop disease, is staging an IPO for the near future. The company plans to increase its annual growth and sales by 40 percent by developing and marketing gene technology products that reduce the need for pesticides. So what, you say? Organic farm and “healthy living” communities have voted “technology that reduces the need for pesticides” as their number one concern. Gene One’s IPO would certainly be a shot in the arm for the economy, creating jobs for hundreds of displaced workers.
JOHN
I’m not afraid to tell you, Don, that I’m concerned about a few members of your senior leadership team and their ability to lead an IPO transformation process. I know we’re all part of what has always been a successful Gene One family, but this is a totally new game. Do you think your top leaders have what it takes?
Don
Don’t be coy, John. Who are you talking about?
JOHN
Well, it’s no secret that Charles doesn’t have the business know-how to design the infrastructure you’ll need to support the IPO. Look at his past history; you might want to consider a replacement. In fact, you might consider Lucas Antonio. He’s led the marketing departments at RX Pharmaceuticals and ClareCorp through IPO transformations. I happen to know he’s available; why don’t you just talk to him? Susan, you know Lucas, don’t you think he’d be a great addition to Don’s team?
Don
Isn’t Lucas a friend of yours? Why did he leave his last company? Just curious.
JOHN
Yes, he is a friend. And he left Waynewright because he and the CEO had very different perspectives on where marketing focus should lie. But I think his perspectives are what you need on your team, even if you only bring him until you get your IPO, and then let him go.
SUSAN
I think John makes a good point, Don. Charles just doesn’t have the experience. And Teri has yet to develop a second breakthrough technology. I know she’s a leader in her field, but we need results, not just a reputation. I know that Teri is your niece, but maybe the best thing to do would be to offer her a generous package. She’ll have no trouble finding another position with her credentials. Besides, I hear rumors that neither she nor Charles are all that keen on the IPO. If the press gets wind of that, you’ll be finished before you start.
DON
Teri is one of our founding officers! More than that, she’s the one who put Gene One on the map. I just don’t think I can support a plan that would push her out. I’m actually having trouble seeing how you would. She’s produced some great new products, and she has the mind and the passion to bring us the breakthrough technologies we need. Charles may be a different story; I need to think that one through. He did do a great job developing our brand image. I’m not dismissing you; I do appreciate your concern about my team.
SUSAN
It’s more than concern, Don. I really think you’ve got to consider replacing staff who don’t have the capability or desire to make this happen
MICHELLE
Hey Greg, do you have a minute? I checked into the SOA requirements and you’re right: The Act requires an IPO Board to have at least one member with financial experience as CPA or CFO. Our Board doesn’t have one. It also requires that the Board have three committees to represent auditing, compensation and nominating. To my knowledge, our Board doesn’t have that either. If we have to recruit new Board members, it could take us a year just to find someone willing to come on now that the word is out about the IPO. I’m also concerned about this compensation shift from equity to cash. That might just force us to re-evaluate all of the Board contracts. How much do you think that will cost us? Have you brought any of this up to Don?
GREG
No, I haven’t spoken to Don about it since the meeting. But I have ordered copies of the SOA, and have been researching the leadership requirements. I’m not sure I’m clear on all of it, though. Do you have any time next week? Maybe we could evaluate the SOA together to figure out what we need. I was also thinking of getting your input and suggestions on a proposal that I plan to give to Don within the next two weeks.
MICHELLE
Let’s have breakfast in my office tomorrow at eight. I can probably have my assistant clear my schedule until around 10.
GREG
Michelle, you’re awesome! I’ll drop a copy of the SOA with your assistant so that you can look it over. I’ve got to run. I’m interviewing a scientist from Princeton. Looks like a promising candidate.
Angela Thomas, VP, Technology ResearchApril 5, 2005Don Ruiz, CEOTeri Robertson, CTOLetter of ResignationDear Mr. Ruiz:
It is with much regret that I tender my resignation, effective two months from today’s date. This was not an easy decision for me to make, but I believe it is the right one, given the current state of affairs.
My passion centers around doing pure and applied research, not pleasing Wall Street. I just don’t have the energy or desire to push myself to deliver new technologies on a schedule; that’s not the way breakthrough technologies happen.
I am recommending Bill Chang as my replacement. Bill has been with Gene One for the past three years and has been instrumental in the development and marketing of new products. He is self-motivated and passionate about his work. More importantly, he has a desire to develop new products as well as conduct research.
I will never forget the day you asked me to join Gene One, Don. It has provided me with tremendous opportunities, including being a part of Teri Robertson’s team and conducting some meaningful breakthrough research. I appreciate all that you both have done for me.
In closing, I would like to thank you for what may turn out to be the best years of my career, as well as for the opportunities that have earned me recognition in my profession.
Sincerely,
Angela
Angela Thomas
VP Technolgy Research
Gene One
GREG
Don, I’m hearing rumors that you’re having doubts about some of our team members. But right now, I’m more concerned about what you plan to tell the employees. How are you going to lead this transformation?
DON
I had a conversation with some of our Board members the other night. If they had their way, I’d be dumping half my team! They just don’t seem to get it: We are who we are because of this team. This team has risen to the occasion before and I know it can again. I know we need to address the SEC requirement, but I can’t just replace people willy-nilly and expect to run a business. I just have to figure out how to get them on board.
GREG
I hate to say this, but it sounds like you’re letting your personal relationships interfere with your business sense.
DON
Am I? Let me think that one over; maybe I’m the one whose not right for this job. Now back to how I’m going to lead this transformation. I’m not sure. Can you meet with me Saturday? You can help me figure out what I need to say to the employees, the financial community and our other stakeholders.
GREG
Let’s do that. By the way, I saw Angela’s resignation. She raises an important issue; what was Teri’s reaction? That’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about when I say we need to think about the culture that exists here before we take any action. We still have the mind of a start-up company and why not? We’re only eight years old. But I’m not sure that mindset is going to serve us in the Wall Street world.
DON
I’ll make a point to speak with Teri soon.
Don,
Can we find a few minutes at Jane’s birthday party Sunday to talk about Angela’s resignation? After our staff meeting, I’m not so sure this is the right place for me either. I want to do research, not keep Wall Street happy.
Teri
Teri Robertson
CTO
Gene One
GENE ONE: A LOFTY VIEW OF BUSINESS REALITY
BY. THOMAS G. EVERS
It’s not too often I get invited to the staff meeting of a company that is making headlines on a daily basis. But Gene One is no ordinary company. In the conference room on the top floor of a Phoenix, Arizona office building, CEO Don Ruiz joked that the area’s reputation for attracting young technology upstarts has nothing to do with Gene One’s presence here. “We’re here because it’s a great place to test some of our new plants in climates ranging from desert to snow-covered mountains — all within a two-hour ride,” he shared with a smile. “And it’s not a bad place to attract some great talent either.”
Maybe Ruiz wasn’t kidding. Everything Gene One does appears to be focused on the business. In less than eight years, three young and ambitious leaders have taken Gene One from a $2 million start-up to a thriving $400 million company. They are here to make contributions to their stakeholders and to society. And they do that by using gene research that “creates new and better produce varieties that can change the lives of people around the world.” It’s not just Gene One’s office location that is lofty; the company’s vision is as well. The company’s business leadership practices, however, appear to be anything but.
The agenda for this staff meeting concerned quicker international product introductions. Why? To improve the bottom line by improving cash flow. No lofty marketing plan here. Rather, they identified 10 “quick options,” a term coined in that very conference room, and one intended to keep meetings moving quickly and efficiently. In an hour’s time, the leadership team has evaluated 10 options — that’s one every six minutes — and chosen their best. Don Ruiz and Marketing Director Charles Jones will make two trips abroad next week, both directed toward finalizing an important plan. I can’t share the exact details of their approach, but I can say that it was as brilliant and as well thought-out as their research.
In Don Ruiz, Gene One has a CEO with a passion, not only for his business but for his team, a team that clearly looks to him for inspiration that he never fails to deliver. Their business process is focused, quick and skillful. CTO Teri Robertson presents ideas that clearly define technology as a business priority. Her technological talent and ability to attract leading researchers have led to one new technology and product after another. That you know the names of these products — Tender Tomatoes, Perfect Potatoes, to name two — is testimony to Charles Jones, a marketing leader who knows how to make things happen. And Michelle Houghton, the CFO, not only knows her numbers, but knows how to look at options both strategically and financially.
To an innocent bystander, the meeting seemed almost vitriolic for all the passionate and energetic arguing. The team members hurl ideas at each other at rapid speed until the meeting reaches fever pitch. But amazingly, what results isn’t a fistfight: It’s a great plan, born of everybody’s input, created by a team.
Driven and successful, all of them. Divergent, certainly. Yet they never lose sight of one fact: They are first about making a contribution to society. That commonality allows them the synergy and potential to continue growing this business at an amazing rate.
Reference Page Entry
University of Phoenix. (). Gene One Scenario [Computer Software]. Retrieved July 26, 2009, from University of Phoenix, Simulation, LDR 531.
In-Text Citation
- [Insert the paraphrased material] (University of Phoenix, ).
- In the University of Phoenix simulation (), [Insert the paraphrased material].
- “[Insert the quotation]” (University of Phoenix, , ).
Kafkaesque
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Kafkaesque
Comes from the author Franz Kafka, and refers to the style with which he wrote his books (which in his dying wish asked for to be burned).
Basically it describes a nightmarish situation which most people can somehow relate to, although strongly surreal. With an ethereal, “evil”, omnipotent power floating just beyond the senses.
You go to the city to see the law. Upon arrival outside the building, there is a guard who says “You may not pass without permission”, you notice that the door is open, but it closed enough for you to not see anything (the law).
You point out that you can easily go into the building, and the guard agrees. Rather than be disagreeable, however, you decide to wait until you have permission.
You wait for many years, and when you’re an old, shriveled wreck, you get yourself to ask:
“During all the years I’ve waited here, no-one else has tried to pass in to see the law, why is this?”,
and the guard answers:
“It is true that no-one else has passed here, that is because this door was always meant solely for you, but now, it is closed forever”.
He then procceeds to close the door and calmly walk away.
This is in fact, one of his short stories, and is very typical to his style, i.e. kafkaesque.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafkaesque
“Kafkaesque” is an eponym used to describe concepts, situations, and ideas which are reminiscent of the literary work of Prague writer Franz Kafka, particularly his novels The Trial and The Castle, and the novella The Metamorphosis.
The term, which is quite fluid in definition, has also been described as “marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity: Kafkaesque bureaucracies“[1] and “marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of impending danger: Kafkaesque fantasies of the impassive interrogation, the false trial, the confiscated passport … haunt his innocence” — The New Yorker.[2]
It can also describe an intentional distortion of reality by powerful but anonymous bureaucrats. “Lack of evidence is treated as a pesky inconvenience, to be circumvented by such Kafkaesque means as depositing unproven allegations into sealed files …” Another definition would be an existentialist state of ever-elusive freedom while existing under unmitigatable control.
The adjective refers to anything suggestive of Kafka, especially his nightmarish type of narration, in which characters lack a clear course of action, the ability to see beyond immediate events, and the possibility of escape. The term’s meaning has transcended the literary realm to apply to real-life occurrences and situations that are incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, or illogical.
Operant Conditioning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behavior. Operant conditioning is distinguished from classical conditioning (also called respondent conditioning, or Pavlovian conditioning) in that operant conditioning deals with the modification of “voluntary behavior” or operant behavior. Operant behavior “operates” on the environment and is maintained by its consequences, while classical conditioning deals with the conditioning of respondent behaviors which are elicited by antecedent conditions. Behaviors conditioned via a classical conditioning procedure are not maintained by consequences.[1]
Reinforcement, punishment, and Extinction
Reinforcement and punishment, the core tools of operant conditioning, are either positive (delivered following a response), or negative (withdrawn following a response). This creates a total of four basic consequences, with the addition of a fifth procedure known as extinction (i.e. no change in consequences following a response)
It’s important to note that organisms are not spoken of as being reinforced, punished, or extinguished; it is the response that is reinforced, punished, or extinguished. Additionally, reinforcement, punishment, and extinction are not terms whose use is restricted to the laboratory. Naturally occurring consequences can also be said to reinforce, punish, or extinguish behavior and are not always delivered by people.
Reinforcement is a consequence that causes a behavior to occur with greater frequency.
Punishment is a consequence that causes a behavior to occur with less frequency.
Extinction is the lack of any consequence following a behavior. When a behavior is inconsequential, producing neither favorable nor unfavorable consequences, it will occur with less frequency. When a previously reinforced behavior is no longer reinforced with either positive or negative reinforcement, it leads to a decline in the response.
Four contexts of operant conditioning: Here the terms “positive” and “negative” are not used in their popular sense, but rather: “positive” refers to addition, and “negative” refers to subtraction. What is added or subtracted may be either reinforcement or punishment. Hence positive punishment is sometimes a confusing term, as it denotes the addition of punishment (such as spanking or an electric shock), a context that may seem very negative in the lay sense. The four procedures are:
Positive reinforcement occurs when a behavior (response) is followed by a favorable stimulus (commonly seen as pleasant) that increases the frequency of that behavior. In the Skinner box experiment, a stimulus such as food or sugar solution can be delivered when the rat engages in a target behavior, such as pressing a lever.
Negative reinforcement occurs when a behavior (response) is followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus (commonly seen as unpleasant) thereby increasing that behavior’s frequency. In the Skinner box experiment, negative reinforcement can be a loud noise continuously sounding inside the rat’s cage until it engages in the target behavior, such as pressing a lever, upon which the loud noise is removed.
Positive punishment (also called “Punishment by contingent stimulation”) occurs when a behavior (response) is followed by an aversive stimulus, such as introducing a shock or loud noise, resulting in a decrease in that behavior.
Negative punishment (also called “Punishment by contingent withdrawal”) occurs when a behavior (response) is followed by the removal of a favorable stimulus, such as taking away a child’s toy following an undesired behavior, resulting in a decrease in that behavior.
Also:
Avoidance learning is a type of learning in which a certain behavior results in the cessation of an aversive stimulus. For example, performing the behavior of shielding one’s eyes when in the sunlight (or going indoors) will help avoid the aversive stimulation of having light in one’s eyes.
Extinction occurs when a behavior (response) that had previously been reinforced is no longer effective. In the Skinner box experiment, this is the rat pushing the lever and being rewarded with a food pellet several times, and then pushing the lever again and never receiving a food pellet again. Eventually the rat would cease pushing the lever.
Noncontingent reinforcement refers to delivery of reinforcing stimuli regardless of the organism’s (aberrant) behavior. The idea is that the target behavior decreases because it is no longer necessary to receive the reinforcement. This typically entails time-based delivery of stimuli identified as maintaining aberrant behavior, which serves to decrease the rate of the target behavior.[2] As no measured behavior is identified as being strengthened, there is controversy surrounding the use of the term noncontingent “reinforcement”.[3]
Thorndike’s law of effect
Main article: Law of effect
Operant conditioning, sometimes called instrumental conditioning or instrumental learning, was first extensively studied by Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949), who observed the behavior of cats trying to escape from home-made puzzle boxes.[4] When first constrained in the boxes, the cats took a long time to escape. With experience, ineffective responses occurred less frequently and successful responses occurred more frequently, enabling the cats to escape in less time over successive trials. In his Law of Effect, Thorndike theorized that successful responses, those producing satisfying consequences, were “stamped in” by the experience and thus occurred more frequently. Unsuccessful responses, those producing annoying consequences, were stamped out and subsequently occurred less frequently. In short, some consequences strengthened behavior and some consequences weakened behavior. Thorndike produced the first known learning curves through this procedure. B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) formulated a more detailed analysis of operant conditioning based on reinforcement, punishment, and extinction. Following the ideas of Ernst Mach, Skinner rejected Thorndike’s mediating structures required by “satisfaction” and constructed a new conceptualization of behavior without any such references. So while experimenting with some homemade feeding mechanisms Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber which allowed him to measure rate of response as a key dependent variable using a cumulative record of lever presses or key pecks.[5]
Operant Conditioning vs Fixed Action Patterns
Skinner’s construct of instrumental learning is contrasted with what Nobel Prize winning biologist Konrad Lorenz termed “fixed action patterns,” or reflexive, impulsive, or instinctive behaviors. These behaviors were said by Skinner and others to exist outside the parameters of operant conditioning but were considered essential to a comprehensive analysis of behavior.
Fixed Action Patterns have their origin in the genetic makeup of the animal in question. Examples of “fixed action patterns” include ducklings that will follow any moving object if they see that object within the period of time when the behaviour will be released, or the dance that a bee performs. Characteristics of “fixed action patterns” include not needing to be learned or acquired; these behaviours are performed correctly the first time that they are performed.
Within operant conditioning, Fixed Action Patterns can be used as reinforcers for learned behaviours. Often, fixed action patterns such as predatory grabbing in dogs can be used as a reinforcer. In police and military dog training, the desire to engage in the predatory bite is often used as a reinforcement for successful completion of a search or an obedience exercise. The amount of desire that a dog might have to engage in the fixed action pattern is also known as “prey drive” although this may well be a misnomer as there is no quantification for how much a dog wants to engage in the predatory sequence.
Fixed Action Patterns can also get in the way of successful learning. Bailey and Breland note in their paper “The Mis-Behaviour of Organisms” that raccoons cannot be taught to place an item in a jar due to the fixed action pattern that is released when they begin to place the item in the jar. When a component of a learned sequence triggers the beginning of a fixed action pattern, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to interrupt that sequence before it is completed. In this way, teaching raccoons to place items in jars, pigs to fetch (fetching triggers routing behaviours) or young ducklings to sit and stay.
Criticisms
Thorndike’s law of effect specifically requires that a behavior be followed by satisfying consequences for learning to occur. There are, however, cases in which learning can be shown to occur without good or bad effects following the behavior. For instance, a number of experiments examining the phenomenon of latent learning[6][7][8][9] showed that a rat needn’t receive a satisfying reward (food, if hungry; water, if thirsty) in order to learn a maze; learning that becomes apparent immediately after the desired reward is introduced. However, views claiming such research invalidates theories of operant conditioning are molecular to a fault. If the rat has a history of “searching behavior” being reinforced in novel environments, the behavior will occur in new environments. This is especially plausible in a species which scavenges for food and has thus likely inherited a propensity for searching behavior to be sensitive to reinforcement. Behaving during initial extinction trials as the organism had during reinforcement trials is not proof of latent learning, as behavior is a function of the history of the individual organism and its genetic endowment and is never controlled by future consequences. That an organism continues to respond during unreinforced trials has been well-established when studying intermittent schedules of reinforcement[10].
A different experiment, in humans, showed that “punishing” the correct behavior may actually cause it to be more frequently taken (i.e. stamp it in)[11]. Subjects are given a number of pairs of holes on a large board and required to learn which hole to poke a stylus through for each pair. If the subjects receive an electric shock for punching the correct hole, they learn which hole is correct more quickly than subjects who receive an electric shock for punching the incorrect hole. This cannot, however, be accurately described as punishment if it is increasing the probability of the behavior.
Biological correlates of operant conditioning
The first scientific studies identifying neurons that responded in ways that suggested they encode for conditioned stimuli came from work by Rusty Richardson and Mahlon deLong.[12][13] They showed that nucleus basalis neurons, which release acetylcholine broadly throughout the cerebral cortex, are activated shortly after a conditioned stimulus, or after a primary reward if no conditioned stimulus exists. These neurons are equally active for positive and negative reinforcers, and have been demonstrated to cause plasticity in many cortical regions.[14] Evidence also exists that dopamine is activated at similar times. The dopamine pathways encode positive reward only, not aversive reinforcement, and they project much more densely onto frontal cortex regions. Cholinergic projections, in contrast, are dense even in the posterior cortical regions like the primary visual cortex. A study of patients with Parkinson’s disease, a condition attributed to the insufficient action of dopamine, further illustrates the role of dopamine in positive reinforcement.[15] It showed that while off their medication, patients learned more readily with aversive consequences than with positive reinforcement. Patients who were on their medication showed the opposite to be the case, positive reinforcement proving to be the more effective form of learning when the action of dopamine is high.
Factors that alter the effectiveness of consequences
When using consequences to modify a response, the effectiveness of a consequence can be increased or decreased by various factors. These factors can apply to either reinforcing or punishing consequences.
Satiation: The effectiveness of a consequence will be reduced if the individual’s “appetite” for that source of stimulation has been satisfied. Inversely, the effectiveness of a consequence will increase as the individual becomes deprived of that stimulus. If someone is not hungry, food will not be an effective reinforcer for behavior. Satiation is generally only a potential problem with primary reinforcers, those that do not need to be learned such as food and water.
Immediacy: After a response, how immediately a consequence is then felt determines the effectiveness of the consequence. More immediate feedback will be more effective than less immediate feedback. If someone’s license plate is caught by a traffic camera for speeding and they receive a speeding ticket in the mail a week later, this consequence will not be very effective against speeding. But if someone is speeding and is caught in the act by an officer who pulls them over, then their speeding behavior is more likely to be affected.
Contingency: If a consequence does not contingently (reliably, or consistently) follow the target response, its effectiveness upon the response is reduced. But if a consequence follows the response consistently after successive instances, its ability to modify the response is increased. The schedule of reinforcement, when consistent, leads to faster learning. When the schedule is variable the learning is slower. Extinction is more difficult when learning occurred during intermittent reinforcement and more easily extinguished when learning occurred during a highly consistent schedule.
Size: This is a “cost-benefit” determinant of whether a consequence will be effective. If the size, or amount, of the consequence is large enough to be worth the effort, the consequence will be more effective upon the behavior. An unusually large lottery jackpot, for example, might be enough to get someone to buy a one-dollar lottery ticket (or even buying multiple tickets). But if a lottery jackpot is small, the same person might not feel it to be worth the effort of driving out and finding a place to buy a ticket. In this example, it’s also useful to note that “effort” is a punishing consequence. How these opposing expected consequences (reinforcing and punishing) balance out will determine whether the behavior is performed or not.
Most of these factors exist for biological reasons. The biological purpose of the Principle of Satiation is to maintain the organism’s homeostasis. When an organism has been deprived of sugar, for example, the effectiveness of the taste of sugar as a reinforcer is high. However, as the organism reaches or exceeds their optimum blood-sugar levels, the taste of sugar becomes less effective, perhaps even aversive.
The principles of Immediacy and Contingency exist for neurochemical reasons. When an organism experiences a reinforcing stimulus, dopamine pathways in the brain are activated. This network of pathways “releases a short pulse of dopamine onto many dendrites, thus broadcasting a rather global reinforcement signal to postsynaptic neurons.”[16] This results in the plasticity of these synapses allowing recently activated synapses to increase their sensitivity to efferent signals, hence increasing the probability of occurrence for the recent responses preceding the reinforcement. These responses are, statistically, the most likely to have been the behavior responsible for successfully achieving reinforcement. But when the application of reinforcement is either less immediate or less contingent (less consistent), the ability of dopamine to act upon the appropriate synapses is reduced.
Operant variability
Operant variability is what allows a response to adapt to new situations. Operant behavior is distinguished from reflexes in that its response topography (the form of the response) is subject to slight variations from one performance to another. These slight variations can include small differences in the specific motions involved, differences in the amount of force applied, and small changes in the timing of the response. If a subject’s history of reinforcement is consistent, such variations will remain stable because the same successful variations are more likely to be reinforced than less successful variations. However, behavioral variability can also be altered when subjected to certain controlling variables.[17]
An extinction burst will often occur when an extinction procedure has just begun. This consists of a sudden and temporary increase in the response’s frequency , followed by the eventual decline and extinction of the behavior targeted for elimination. Take, as an example, a pigeon that has been reinforced to peck an electronic button. During its training history, every time the pigeon pecked the button, it will have received a small amount of bird seed as a reinforcer. So, whenever the bird is hungry, it will peck the button to receive food. However, if the button were to be turned off, the hungry pigeon will first try pecking the button just as it has in the past. When no food is forthcoming, the bird will likely try again… and again, and again. After a period of frantic activity, in which their pecking behavior yields no result, the pigeon’s pecking will decrease in frequency.
The evolutionary advantage of this extinction burst is clear. In a natural environment, an animal that persists in a learned behavior, despite not resulting in immediate reinforcement, might still have a chance of producing reinforcing consequences if they try again. This animal would be at an advantage over another animal that gives up too easily.
Extinction-induced variability serves a similar adaptive role. When extinction begins, and if the environment allows for it, an initial increase in the response rate is not the only thing that can happen. Imagine a bell curve. The horizontal axis would represent the different variations possible for a given behavior. The vertical axis would represent the response’s probability in a given situation. Response variants in the middle of the bell curve, at its highest point, are the most likely because those responses, according to the organism’s experience, have been the most effective at producing reinforcement. The more extreme forms of the behavior would lie at the lower ends of the curve, to the left and to the right of the peak, where their probability for expression is low.
A simple example would be a person inside a room opening a door to exit. The response would be the opening of the door, and the reinforcer would be the freedom to exit. For each time that same person opens that same door, they do not open the door in the exact same way every time. Rather, each time they open the door a little differently: sometimes with less force, sometimes with more force; sometimes with one hand, sometimes with the other hand; sometimes more quickly, sometimes more slowly. Because of the physical properties of the door and its handle, there is a certain range of successful responses which are reinforced.
Now imagine in our example that the subject tries to open the door and it won’t budge. This is when extinction-induced variability occurs. The bell curve of probable responses will begin to broaden, with more extreme forms of behavior becoming more likely. The person might now try opening the door with extra force, repeatedly twist the knob, try to hit the door with their shoulder, maybe even call for help or climb out a window. This is how extinction causes variability in behavior, in the hope that these new variations might be successful. For this reason, extinction-induced variability is an important part of the operant procedure of shaping.
Avoidance learning
Avoidance training belongs to negative reinforcement schedules. The subject learns that a certain response will result in the termination or prevention of an aversive stimulus. There are two kinds of commonly used experimental settings: discriminated and free-operant avoidance learning.
Discriminated avoidance learning
In discriminated avoidance learning, a novel stimulus such as a light or a tone is followed by an aversive stimulus such as a shock (CS-US, similar to classical conditioning). During the first trials (called escape-trials) the animal usually experiences both the CS and the US, showing the operant response to terminate the aversive US. By the time, the animal will learn to perform the response already during the presentation of the CS thus preventing the aversive US from occurring. Such trials are called avoidance trials.
Free-operant avoidance learning
In this experimental session, no discrete stimulus is used to signal the occurrence of the aversive stimulus. Rather, the aversive stimulus (mostly shocks) are presented without explicit warning stimuli.
There are two crucial time intervals determining the rate of avoidance learning. This first one is called the S-S-interval (shock-shock-interval). This is the amount of time which passes during successive presentations of the shock (unless the operant response is performed). The other one is called the R-S-interval (response-shock-interval) which specifies the length of the time interval following an operant response during which no shocks will be delivered. Note that each time the organism performs the operant response, the R-S-interval without shocks begins anew.
Two-process theory of avoidance
This theory was originally established to explain learning in discriminated avoidance learning. It assumes two processes to take place. a) Classical conditioning of fear. During the first trials of the training, the organism experiences both CS and aversive US(escape-trials). The theory assumed that during those trials classical conditioning takes place by pairing the CS with the US. Because of the aversive nature of the US the CS is supposed to elicit a conditioned emotional reaction (CER) – fear. In classical conditioning, presenting a CS conditioned with an aversive US disrupts the organism’s ongoing behavior. b) Reinforcement of the operant response by fear-reduction. Because during the first process, the CS signaling the aversive US has itself become aversive by eliciting fear in the organism, reducing this unpleasant emotional reaction serves to motivate the operant response. The organism learns to make the response during the US, thus terminating the aversive internal reaction elicited by the CS. An important aspect of this theory is that the term “Avoidance” does not really describe what the organism is doing. It does not “avoid” the aversive US in the sense of anticipating it. Rather the organism escapes an aversive internal state, caused by the CS.
One of the practical aspects of operant conditioning with relation to animal training is the use of shaping (reinforcing successive approximations and not reinforcing behavior past approximating), as well as chaining.
Verbal Behavior
Main article: Verbal Behavior (book)
In 1957 Skinner published Verbal Behavior a theoretical extension of the work he had pioneered since 1938. This work extended the theory of operant conditioning to human behavior previously assigned to the areas of language, linguistics and other areas. Verbal Behavior is the logical extension of Skinner’s ideas, in which he introduced new functional relationship categories such as intraverbals, autoclitics, mands, tacts and the controlling relationship of the audience. All of these relationships were based on operant conditioning and relied on no new mechanisms despite the introduction of new functional categories.
Four term contingency
Modern behavior analysis, which is the name of the discipline directly descended from Skinner’s work, holds that behavior is explained in four terms: an establishing operation (EO), a discriminative stimulus (Sd), a response (R), and a reinforcing stimulus (Srein or Sr for reinforcers, sometimes Save for aversive stimuli).[18]
Operant Hoarding
Operant Hoarding is a term referring to the choice made by a rat, on a compound schedule called a multiple schedule, that maximizes its rate of reinforcement in an operant conditioning context. More specifically, rats were shown to have allowed food pellets to accumulate in a food tray by continuing to press a lever on a continuous reinforcement schedule instead of retrieving those pellets. Retrieval of the pellets always instituted a one-minute period of extinction during which no additional food pellets were available but those that had been accumulated earlier could be consumed. This finding appears to contradict the usual finding that rats behave impulsively in situations in which there is a choice between a smaller food object right away and a larger food object after some delay. See schedules of reinforcement. [19
The Stanford Prison Experiment – Part III
Stanford. (1999-2009). The Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved July 13, 2009, from http://www.prisonexp.org/
A Mass Escape Plot
The next major event we had to contend with was a rumored mass escape plot. One of the guards overheard the prisoners talking about an escape that would take place immediately after visiting hours. The rumor went as follows: Prisoner #8612, whom we had released the night before, was going to round up a bunch of his friends and break in to free the prisoners.
How do you think we reacted to this rumor? Do you think we recorded the pattern of rumor transmission and prepared to observe the impending escape? That was what we should have done, of course, if we were acting like experimental social psychologists. Instead, we reacted with concern over the security of our prison. What we did was to hold a strategy session with the Warden, the Superintendent, and one of the chief lieutenants, Craig Haney, to plan how to foil the escape.
After our meeting, we decided to put an informant (an experimental confederate) in the cell that #8612 had occupied. The job of our informant would be to give us information about the escape plot. Then I went back to the Palo Alto Police Department and asked the sergeant if we could have our prisoners transferred to their old jail.
My request was turned down because the Police Department would not be covered by insurance if we moved our prisoners into their jail. I left angry and disgusted at this lack of cooperation between our correctional facilities (I was now totally into my role).
Then we formulated a second plan. The plan was to dismantle our jail after the visitors left, call in more guards, chain the prisoners together, put bags over their heads, and transport them to a fifth floor storage room until after the anticipated break in. When the conspirators came, I would be sitting there alone. I would tell them that the experiment was over and we had sent all of their friends home, that there was nothing left to liberate. After they left, we’d bring our prisoners back and redouble the security of our prison. We even thought of luring #8612 back on some pretext and then imprisoning him again because he was released on false pretenses.
A Visit
I was sitting there all alone, waiting anxiously for the intruders to break in, when who should happen along but a colleague and former Yale graduate student roommate, Gordon Bower. Gordon had heard we were doing an experiment, and he came to see what was going on. I briefly described what we were up to, and Gordon asked me a very simple question: “Say, what’s the independent variable in this study?”
To my surprise, I got really angry at him. Here I had a prison break on my hands. The security of my men and the stability of my prison was at stake, and now, I had to deal with this bleeding-heart, liberal, academic, effete dingdong who was concerned about the independent variable! It wasn’t until much later that I realized how far into my prison role I was at that point — that I was thinking like a prison superintendent rather than a research psychologist.
Paying Them Back
The rumor of the prison break turned out to be just a rumor. It never materialized. Imagine our reaction! We had spent an entire day planning to foil the escape, we begged the police department for help, moved our prisoners, dismantled most of the prison — we didn’t even collect any data that day. How did we react to this mess? With considerable frustration and feelings of dissonance over the effort we had put in to no avail. Someone was going to pay for this.
The guards again escalated very noticeably their level of harassment, increasing the humiliation they made the prisoners suffer, forcing them to do menial, repetitive work such as cleaning out toilet bowls with their bare hands. The guards had prisoners do push-ups, jumping jacks, whatever the guards could think up, and they increased the length of the counts to several hours each.
A Kafkaesque Element
At this point in the study, I invited a Catholic priest who had been a prison chaplain to evaluate how realistic our prison situation was, and the result was truly Kafkaesque. The chaplain interviewed each prisoner individually, and I watched in amazement as half the prisoners introduced themselves by number rather than name. After some small talk, he popped the key question: “Son, what are you doing to get out of here?” When the prisoners responded with puzzlement, he explained that the only way to get out of prison was with the help of a lawyer. He then volunteered to contact their parents to get legal aid if they wanted him to, and some of the prisoners accepted his offer.
The priest’s visit further blurred the line between role-playing and reality. In daily life this man was a real priest, but he had learned to play a stereotyped, programmed role so well — talking in a certain way, folding his hands in a prescribed manner — that he seemed more like a movie version of a priest than a real priest, thereby adding to the uncertainty we were all feeling about where our roles ended and our personal identities began.
#819
The only prisoner who did not want to speak to the priest was Prisoner #819, who was feeling sick, had refused to eat, and wanted to see a doctor rather than a priest. Eventually he was persuaded to come out of his cell and talk to the priest and superintendent so we could see what kind of a doctor he needed. While talking to us, he broke down and began to cry hysterically, just as had the other two boys we released earlier. I took the chain off his foot, the cap off his head, and told him to go and rest in a room that was adjacent to the prison yard. I said that I would get him some food and then take him to see a doctor.
While I was doing this, one of the guards lined up the other prisoners and had them chant aloud: “Prisoner #819 is a bad prisoner. Because of what Prisoner #819 did, my cell is a mess, Mr. Correctional Officer.” They shouted this statement in unison a dozen times.
As soon as I realized that #819 could hear the chanting, I raced back to the room where I had left him, and what I found was a boy sobbing uncontrollably while in the background his fellow prisoners were yelling that he was a bad prisoner. No longer was the chanting disorganized and full of fun, as it had been on the first day. Now it was marked by utter confomity and compliance, as if a single voice was saying, “#819 is bad.”
I suggested we leave, but he refused. Through his tears, he said he could not leave because the others had labeled him a bad prisoner. Even though he was feeling sick, he wanted to go back and prove he was not a bad prisoner.
At that point I said, “Listen, you are not #819. You are [his name], and my name is Dr. Zimbardo. I am a psychologist, not a prison superintendent, and this is not a real prison. This is just an experiment, and those are students, not prisoners, just like you. Let’s go.”
He stopped crying suddenly, looked up at me like a small child awakened from a nightmare, and replied, “Okay, let’s go.”
Parole Board
The next day, all prisoners who thought they had grounds for being paroled were chained together and individually brought before the Parole Board. The Board was composed mainly of people who were strangers to the prisoners (departmental secretaries and graduate students) and was headed by our top prison consultant.
Several remarkable things occurred during these parole hearings. First, when we asked prisoners whether they would forfeit the money they had earned up to that time if we were to parole them, most said yes. Then, when we ended the hearings by telling prisoners to go back to their cells while we considered their requests, every prisoner obeyed, even though they could have obtained the same result by simply quitting the experiment. Why did they obey? Because they felt powerless to resist. Their sense of reality had shifted, and they no longer perceived their imprisonment as an experiment. In the psychological prison we had created, only the correctional staff had the power to grant paroles.
During the parole hearings we also witnessed an unexpected metamorphosis of our prison consultant as he adopted the role of head of the Parole Board. He literally became the most hated authoritarian official imaginable, so much so that when it was over he felt sick at who he had become — his own tormentor who had previously rejected his annual parole requests for 16 years when he was a prisoner.
Types of Guards
By the fifth day, a new relationship had emerged between prisoners and guards. The guards now fell into their job more easily — a job which at times was boring and at times was interesting.
There were three types of guards. First, there were tough but fair guards who followed prison rules. Second, there were “good guys” who did little favors for the prisoners and never punished them. And finally, about a third of the guards were hostile, arbitrary, and inventive in their forms of prisoner humiliation. These guards appeared to thoroughly enjoy the power they wielded, yet none of our preliminary personality tests were able to predict this behavior. The only link between personality and prison behavior was a finding that prisoners with a high degree of authoritarianism endured our authoritarian prison environment longer than did other prisoners.
John Wayne
The prisoners even nicknamed the most macho and brutal guard in our study “John Wayne.” Later, we learned that the most notorious guard in a Nazi prison near Buchenwald was named “Tom Mix” — the John Wayne of an earlier generation — because of his “Wild West” cowboy macho image in abusing camp inmates.
Where had our “John Wayne” learned to become such a guard? How could he and others move so readily into that role? How could intelligent, mentally healthy, “ordinary” men become perpetrators of evil so quickly? These were questions we were forced to ask.
Prisoners’ Coping Styles
Prisoners coped with their feelings of frustration and powerlessness in a variety of ways. At first, some prisoners rebelled or fought with the guards. Four prisoners reacted by breaking down emotionally as a way to escape the situation. One prisoner developed a psychosomatic rash over his entire body when he learned that his parole request had been turned down. Others tried to cope by being good prisoners, doing everything the guards wanted them to do. One of them was even nicknamed “Sarge,” because he was so military-like in executing all commands.
By the end of the study, the prisoners were disintegrated, both as a group and as individuals. There was no longer any group unity; just a bunch of isolated individuals hanging on, much like prisoners of war or hospitalized mental patients. The guards had won total control of the prison, and they commanded the blind obedience of each prisoner.
One Final Act of Rebellion
We did see one final act of rebellion. Prisoner #416 was newly admitted as one of our stand-by prisoners. Unlike the other prisoners, who had experienced a gradual escalation of harassment, this prisoner’s horror was full-blown when he arrived. The “old timer” prisoners told him that quitting was impossible, that it was a real prison.
Prisoner #416 coped by going on a hunger strike to force his release. After several unsuccessful attempts to get #416 to eat, the guards threw him into solitary confinement for three hours, even though their own rules stated that one hour was the limit. Still, #416 refused.
At this point #416 should have been a hero to the other prisoners. But instead, the others saw him as a troublemaker. The head guard then exploited this feeling by giving prisoners a choice. They could have #416 come out of solitary if they were willing to give up their blanket, or they could leave #416 in solitary all night.
What do you think they chose? Most elected to keep their blanket and let their fellow prisoner suffer in solitary all night. (We intervened later and returned #416 to his cell.)
An End to the Experiment
On the fifth night, some visiting parents asked me to contact a lawyer in order to get their son out of prison. They said a Catholic priest had called to tell them they should get a lawyer or public defender if they wanted to bail their son out! I called the lawyer as requested, and he came the next day to interview the prisoners with a standard set of legal questions, even though he, too, knew it was just an experiment.
At this point it became clear that we had to end the study. We had created an overwhelmingly powerful situation — a situation in which prisoners were withdrawing and behaving in pathological ways, and in which some of the guards were behaving sadistically. Even the “good” guards felt helpless to intervene, and none of the guards quit while the study was in progress. Indeed, it should be noted that no guard ever came late for his shift, called in sick, left early, or demanded extra pay for overtime work.
I ended the study prematurely for two reasons. First, we had learned through videotapes that the guards were escalating their abuse of prisoners in the middle of the night when they thought no researchers were watching and the experiment was “off.” Their boredom had driven them to ever more pornographic and degrading abuse of the prisoners.
Second, Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D. brought in to conduct interviews with the guards and prisoners, strongly objected when she saw our prisoners being marched on a toilet run, bags over their heads, legs chained together, hands on each other’s shoulders. Filled with outrage, she said, “It’s terrible what you are doing to these boys!” Out of 50 or more outsiders who had seen our prison, she was the only one who ever questioned its morality. Once she countered the power of the situation, however, it became clear that the study should be ended.
And so, after only six days, our planned two-week prison simulation was called off.
On the last day, we held a series of encounter sessions, first with all the guards, then with all the prisoners (including those who had been released earlier), and finally with the guards, prisoners, and staff together. We did this in order to get everyone’s feelings out in the open, to recount what we had observed in each other and ourselves, and to share our experiences, which to each of us had been quite profound.
We also tried to make this a time for moral reeducation by discussing the conflicts posed by this simulation and our behavior. For example, we reviewed the moral alternatives that had been available to us, so that we would be better equipped to behave morally in future real-life situations, avoiding or opposing situations that might transform ordinary individuals into willing perpetrators or victims of evil.
Two months after the study, here is the reaction of prisoner #416, our would-be hero who was placed in solitary confinement for several hours:
“I began to feel that I was losing my identity, that the person that I called Clay, the person who put me in this place, the person who volunteered to go into this prison — because it was a prison to me; it still is a prison to me. I don’t regard it as an experiment or a simulation because it was a prison run by psychologists instead of run by the state. I began to feel that that identity, the person that I was that had decided to go to prison was distant from me — was remote until finally I wasn’t that, I was 416. I was really my number.”
Compare his reaction to that of the following prisoner who wrote to me from an Ohio penitentiary after being in solitary confinement for an inhumane length of time:
“I was recently released from solitary confinement after being held therein for thirty-seven months. The silence system was imposed upon me and if I even whispered to the man in the next cell resulted in being beaten by guards, sprayed with chemical mace, black jacked, stomped, and thrown into a strip cell naked to sleep on a concrete floor without bedding, covering, wash basin, or even a toilet….I know that thieves must be punished, and I don’t justify stealing even though I am a thief myself. But now I don’t think I will be a thief when I am released. No, I am not rehabilitated either. It is just that I no longer think of becoming wealthy or stealing. I now only think of killing — killing those who have beaten me and treated me as if I were a dog. I hope and pray for the sake of my own soul and future life of freedom that I am able to overcome the bitterness and hatred which eats daily at my soul. But I know to overcome it will not be easy.”
Stanford. (1999-2009). The Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved July 13, 2009, from http://www.prisonexp.org/
The Milgram Experiment
The Milgram experiment was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. Milgram first described his research in 1963 in an article published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,[1] and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.[2]
The experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiments to answer this question: “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?”[3]
Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, “The Perils of Obedience”, writing:
The legal and philosophic aspects of
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.
The original Simulated Shock Generator and Event Recorder, or shock box, is located in the Archives of the History of American Psychology.
The experiment
Milgram Experiment advertisement, facsimile
Three people take part in the experiment: “experimenter”, “learner” (“victim”) and “teacher” (participant). Only the “teacher” is an actual participant, i.e. unaware about the actual setup, while the “learner” is a confederate of the experimenter. The role of the experimenter was played by a stern, impassive biology teacher dressed in a grey technician’s coat, and the victim (learner) was played by a 47 year old Irish-American accountant trained to act for the role. The participant and the learner were told by the experimenter that they would be participating in an experiment helping his study of memory and learning in different situations.[1] The subject was given the title teacher, and the confederate, learner. The participants drew lots to ‘determine’ their roles. Unknown to them, both slips said “teacher,” and the actor claimed to have the slip that read “learner,” thus guaranteeing that the participant would always be the “teacher.” At this point, the “teacher” and “learner” were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. In one version of the experiment, the confederate was sure to mention to the participant that he had a heart condition.[1]
The “teacher” was given an electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock that the “learner” would supposedly receive during the experiment. The “teacher” was then given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the learner. The teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect, the teacher would administer a shock to the learner, with the voltage increasing in 15-volt increments for each wrong answer. If correct, the teacher would read the next word pair.[1]
The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After the confederate was separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level. After a number of voltage level increases, the actor started to bang on the wall that separated him from the subject. After several times banging on the wall and complaining about his heart condition, all responses by the learner would cease.[1]
At this point, many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the learner. Some test subjects paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment. Most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress once they heard the screams of pain coming from the learner.[1]
If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:[1]
- Please continue.
- The experiment requires that you continue.
- It is absolutely essential that you continue.
- You have no other choice, you must go on.
If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.
This study would be considered unethical according to standards today.
Results
Before conducting the experiment, Milgram polled fourteen Yale University senior-year psychology majors as to what they thought would be the results. All of the poll respondents believed that only a few (average 1.2%) would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. Milgram also informally polled his colleagues and found that they, too, believed very few subjects would progress beyond a very strong shock.[1]
In Milgram’s first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40)[1] of experiment participants administered the experiment’s final 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment, some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment. Only one participant steadfastly refused to administer shocks before the 300-volt level.[1]
Later, Prof. Milgram and other psychologists performed variations of the experiment throughout the world, with similar results[5] although unlike the Yale experiment, resistance to the experimenter was reported anecdotally elsewhere.[6] Milgram later investigated the effect of the experiment’s locale on obedience levels by holding an experiment in an unregistered, backstreet office in a bustling city, as opposed to at Yale, a respectable university. The level of obedience, “although somewhat reduced, was not significantly lower”. What made more of a difference was the proximity of the “learner” and the experimenter. There were also variations tested involving groups.
Dr. Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of the experiment. He found that the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, 61–66 percent, regardless of time or place.[7][8][verification needed]
There is a little-known coda to the Milgram Experiment, reported by Philip Zimbardo: none of the participants who refused to administer the final shocks insisted that the experiment itself be terminated, nor left the room to check the health of the victim without requesting permission to leave, as per Milgram’s notes and recollections, when Zimbardo asked him about that point.[9]
Milgram created a documentary film titled Obedience showing the experiment and its results. He also produced a series of five social psychology films, some of which dealt with his experiments.[10]
The Milgram Experiment raised questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the participants. In Milgram’s defense, 84 percent of former participants surveyed later said they were “glad” or “very glad” to have participated, 15 percent chose neutral responses (92% of all former participants responding).[11] Many later wrote expressing thanks. Milgram repeatedly received offers of assistance and requests to join his staff from former participants. Six years later (at the height of the Vietnam War), one of the participants in the experiment sent correspondence to Milgram, explaining why he was glad to have participated despite the stress:
While I was a subject in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority… To permit myself to be
drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority’s demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself… I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience…
The experiments provoked emotional criticism more about the experiment’s implications than with experimental ethics. In the journal Jewish Currents, Joseph Dimow, a participant in the 1961 experiment at Yale University, wrote about his early withdrawal as a “teacher”, suspicious “that the whole experiment was designed to see if ordinary Americans would obey immoral orders, as many Germans had done during the Nazi period”.[12] Indeed, that was one of the explicitly-stated goals of the experiments. Quoting from the preface of Milgram’s book, Obedience to Authority: “The question arises as to whether there is any connection between what we have studied in the laboratory and the forms of obedience we so deplored in the Nazi epoch”.
In 1981, Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr wrote that The Milgram Experiment and the later Stanford prison experiment led by Zimbardo at Stanford University were frightening in their implications about the danger lurking in human nature’s dark side.[13]
obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.[4]
The Stanford Prison Experiment – Part II
Stanford. (1999-2009). The Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved July 13, 2009, from http://www.prisonexp.org/
Enforcing Law
The guards were given no specific training on how to be guards. Instead they were free, within limits, to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain law and order in the prison and to command the respect of the prisoners. The guards made up their own set of rules, which they then carried into effect under the supervision of Warden David Jaffe, an undergraduate from Stanford University. They were warned, however, of the potential seriousness of their mission and of the possible dangers in the situation they were about to enter, as, of course, are real guards who voluntarily take such a dangerous job.
As with real prisoners, our prisoners expected some harassment, to have their privacy and some of their other civil rights violated while they were in prison, and to get a minimally adequate diet — all part of their informed consent agreement when they volunteered.
This is what one of our guards looked like. All guards were dressed in identical uniforms of khaki, and they carried a whistle around their neck and a billy club borrowed from the police. Guards also wore special sun-glasses, an idea I borrowed from the movie Cool Hand Luke. Mirror sunglasses prevented anyone from seeing their eyes or reading their emotions, and thus helped to further promote their anonymity. We were, of course, studying not only the prisoners but also the guards, who found themselves in a new power-laden role.
We began with nine guards and nine prisoners in our jail. Three guards worked each of three eight-hour shifts, while three prisoners occupied each of the three barren cells around the clock. The remaining guards and prisoners from our sample of 24 were on call in case they were needed. The cells were so small that there was room for only three cots on which the prisoners slept or sat, with room for little else.
Asserting Authority
At 2:30 A.M. the prisoners were rudely awakened from sleep by blasting whistles for the first of many “counts.” The counts served the purpose of familiarizing the prisoners with their numbers (counts took place several times each shift and often at night). But more importantly, these events provided a regular occasion for the guards to exercise control over the prisoners. At first, the prisoners were not completely into their roles and did not take the counts too seriously. They were still trying to assert their independence. The guards, too, were feeling out their new roles and were not yet sure how to assert authority over their prisoners. This was the beginning of a series of direct confrontations between the guards and prisoners.
Push-ups were a common form of physical punishment imposed by the guards to punish infractions of the rules or displays of improper attitudes toward the guards or institution. When we saw the guards demand push-ups from the prisoners, we initially thought this was an inappropriate kind of punishment for a prison — a rather juvenile and minimal form of punishment. However, we later learned that push-ups were often used as a form of punishment in Nazi concentration camps, as can be seen in this drawing by a former concentration camp inmate, Alfred Kantor. It’s noteworthy that one of our guards also stepped on the prisoners’ backs while they did push-ups, or made other prisoners sit or step on the backs of fellow prisoners doing their push-ups.
Asserting Independence
Because the first day passed without incident, we were surprised and totally unprepared for the rebellion which broke out on the morning of the second day. The prisoners removed their stocking caps, ripped off their numbers, and barricaded themselves inside the cells by putting their beds against the door. And now the problem was, what were we going to do about this rebellion? The guards were very much angered and frustrated because the prisoners also began to taunt and curse them. When the morning shift of guards came on, they became upset at the night shift who, they felt, must have been too lenient. The guards had to handle the rebellion themselves, and what they did was fascinating for the staff to behold.
At first they insisted that reinforcements be called in. The three guards who were waiting on stand-by call at home came in and the night shift of guards voluntarily remained on duty to bolster the morning shift. The guards met and decided to treat force with force.
They got a fire extinguisher which shot a stream of skin-chilling carbon dioxide, and they forced the prisoners away from the doors. (The fire extinguishers were present in compliance with the requirement by the Stanford Human Subjects Research Panel, which was concerned about potential fire threats.)
The guards broke into each cell, stripped the prisoners naked, took the beds out, forced the ringleaders of the prisoner rebellion into solitary confinement, and generally began to harass and intimidate the prisoners.
Special Privileges
The rebellion had been temporarily crushed, but now a new problem faced the guards. Sure, nine guards with clubs could put down a rebellion by nine prisoners, but you couldn’t have nine guards on duty at all times. It’s obvious that our prison budget could not support such a ratio of staff to inmates. So what were they going to do? One of the guards came up a solution. “Let’s use psychological tactics instead of physical ones.” Psychological tactics amounted to setting up a privilege cell.
One of the three cells was designated as a “privilege cell.” The three prisoners least involved in the rebellion were given special privileges. They got their uniforms back, got their beds back, and were allowed to wash and brush their teeth. The others were not. Privileged prisoners also got to eat special food in the presence of the other prisoners who had temporarily lost the privilege of eating. The effect was to break the solidarity among prisoners.
After half a day of this treatment, the guards then took some of these “good” prisoners and put them into the “bad” cells, and took some of the “bad” prisoners and put them into the “good” cell, thoroughly confusing all the prisoners. Some of the prisoners who were the ringleaders now thought that the prisoners from the privileged cell must be informers, and suddenly, the prisoners became distrustful of each other. Our ex-convict consultants later informed us that a similar tactic is used by real guards in real prisons to break prisoner alliances. For example, racism is used to pit Blacks, Chicanos, and Anglos against each other. In fact, in a real prison the greatest threat to any prisoner’s life comes from fellow prisoners. By dividing and conquering in this way, guards promote aggression among inmates, thereby deflecting it from themselves.
The prisoners’ rebellion also played an important role in producing greater solidarity among the guards. Now, suddenly, it was no longer just an experiment, no longer a simple simulation. Instead, the guards saw the prisoners as troublemakers who were out to get them, who might really cause them some harm. In response to this threat, the guards began stepping up their control, surveillance, and aggression.
Every aspect of the prisoners’ behavior fell under the total and arbitrary control of the guards. Even going to the toilet became a privilege which a guard could grant or deny at his whim. Indeed, after the nightly 10:00 P.M. lights out “lock-up,” prisoners were often forced to urinate or defecate in a bucket that was left in their cell. On occasion the guards would not allow prisoners to empty these buckets, and soon the prison began to smell of urine and feces — further adding to the degrading quality of the environment.
The guards were especially tough on the ringleader of the rebellion, Prisoner #5401. He was a heavy smoker, and they controlled him by regulating his opportunity to smoke. We later learned, while censoring the prisoners’ mail, that he was a self-styled radical activist. He had volunteered in order to “expose” our study, which he mistakenly thought was an establishment tool to find ways to control student radicals. In fact, he had planned to sell the story to an underground newspaper when the experiment was over! However, even he fell so completely into the role of prisoner that he was proud to be elected leader of the Stanford County Jail Grievance Committee, as revealed in a letter to his girlfriend.
The First Prisoner Released
Less than 36 hours into the experiment, Prisoner #8612 began suffering from acute emotional disturbance, disorganized thinking, uncontrollable crying, and rage. In spite of all of this, we had already come to think so much like prison authorities that we thought he was trying to “con” us — to fool us into releasing him.
When our primary prison consultant interviewed Prisoner #8612, the consultant chided him for being so weak, and told him what kind of abuse he could expect from the guards and the prisoners if he were in San Quentin Prison. #8612 was then given the offer of becoming an informant in exchange for no further guard harassment. He was told to think it over.
During the next count, Prisoner #8612 told other prisoners, “You can’t leave. You can’t quit.” That sent a chilling message and heightened their sense of really being imprisoned. #8612 then began to act “crazy,” to scream, to curse, to go into a rage that seemed out of control. It took quite a while before we became convinced that he was really suffering and that we had to release him.
Parents and Friends
The next day, we held a visiting hour for parents and friends. We were worried that when the parents saw the state of our jail, they might insist on taking their sons home. To counter this, we manipulated both the situation and the visitors by making the prison environment seem pleasant and benign. We washed, shaved, and groomed the prisoners, had them clean and polish their cells, fed them a big dinner, played music on the intercom, and even had an attractive former Stanford cheerleader, Susie Phillips, greet the visitors at our registration desk
When the dozen or so visitors came, full of good humor at what seemed to be a novel, fun experience, we systematically brought their behavior under situational control. They had to register, were made to wait half an hour, were told that only two visitors could see any one prisoner, were limited to only ten minutes of visiting time, and had to be under the surveillance of a guard during the visit. Before any parents could enter the visiting area, they also had to discuss their son’s case with the Warden. Of course, parents complained about these arbitrary rules, but remarkably, they complied with them. And so they, too, became bit players in our prison drama, being good middle-class adults.
Some of the parents got upset when they saw how fatigued and distressed their son was. But their reaction was to work within the system to appeal privately to the Superintendent to make conditions better for their boy. When one mother told me she had never seen her son looking so bad, I responded by shifting the blame from the situation to her son. “What’s the matter with your boy? Doesn’t he sleep well?” Then I asked the father, “Don’t you think your boy can handle this?”
He bristled, “Of course he can — he’s a real tough kid, a leader.” Turning to the mother, he said, “Come on Honey, we’ve wasted enough time already.” And to me, “See you again at the next visiting time.”
Stanford. (1999-2009). The Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved July 13, 2009, from http://www.prisonexp.org/
The Stanford Prison Experiment – Part I
On a quiet Sunday morning in August, 1971, a Palo Alto, California, police car swept through the town picking up college students as part of a mass arrest for violation of Penal Codes 211, Armed Robbery, and Burglary, a 459 PC. The suspect was picked up at his home, charged, warned of his legal rights, spread-eagled against the police car, searched, and handcuffed — often as surprised and curious neighbors looked on
The suspect was then put in the rear of the police car and carried off to the police station, the sirens wailing.
The car arrived at the station, the suspect was brought inside, formally booked, again warned of his Miranda rights, finger printed, and a complete identification was made. The suspect was then taken to a holding cell where he was left blindfolded to ponder his fate and wonder what he had done to get himself into this mess.
What suspects had done was to answer a local newspaper ad calling for volunteers in a study of the psychological effects of prison life. We wanted to see what the psychological effects were of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. To do this, we decided to set up a simulated prison and then carefully note the effects of this institution on the behavior of all those within its walls.
More than 70 applicants answered our ad and were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse. Ultimately, we were left with a sample of 24 college students from the U.S. and Canada who happened to be in the Stanford area and wanted to earn $15/day by participating in a study. On all dimensions that we were able to test or observe, they reacted normally.
Our study of prison life began, then, with an average group of healthy, intelligent, middle-class males. These boys were arbitrarily divided into two groups by a flip of the coin. Half were randomly assigned to be guards, the other to be prisoners. It is important to remember that at the beginning of our experiment there were no differences between boys assigned to be a prisoner and boys assigned to be a guard.
To help us closely simulate a prison environment, we called upon the services of experienced consultants. Foremost among them was a former prisoner who had served nearly seventeen years behind bars. This consultant made us aware of what it was like to be a prisoner. He also introduced us to a number of other ex-convicts and correctional personnel during an earlier Stanford summer school class we co-taught on “The Psychology of Imprisonment.”
Our prison was constructed by boarding up each end of a corridor in the basement of Stanford’s Psychology Department building. That corridor was “The Yard” and was the only outside place where prisoners were allowed to walk, eat, or exercise, except to go to the toilet down the hallway (which prisoners did blindfolded so as not to know the way out of the prison).
To create prison cells, we took the doors off some laboratory rooms and replaced them with specially made doors with steel bars and cell numbers.
At one end of the hall was a small opening through which we could videotape and record the events that occurred. On the side of the corridor opposite the cells was a small closet which became “The Hole,” or solitary confinement. It was dark and very confining, about two feet wide and two feet deep, but tall enough that a “bad prisoner” could stand up.
An intercom system allowed us to secretly bug the cells to monitor what the prisoners discussed, and also to make public announcements to the prisoners. There were no windows or clocks to judge the passage of time, which later resulted in some time-distorting experiences.
With these features in place, our jail was ready to receive its first prisoners, who were waiting in the detention cells of the Palo Alto Police Department.
Blindfolded and in a state of mild shock over their surprise arrest by the city police, our prisoners were put into a car and driven to the “Stanford County Jail” for further processing. The prisoners were then brought into our jail one at a time and greeted by the warden, who conveyed the seriousness of their offense and their new status as prisoners.
Humiliation
Each prisoner was systematically searched and stripped naked. He was then deloused with a spray, to convey our belief that he may have germs or lice — as can be seen in this series of photos.
A degradation procedure was designed in part to humiliate prisoners and in part to be sure they weren’t bringing in any germs to contaminate our jail.
The prisoner was then issued a uniform. The main part of this uniform was a dress, or smock, which each prisoner wore at all times with no underclothes. On the smock, in front and in back, was his prison ID number. On each prisoner’s right ankle was a heavy chain, bolted on and worn at all times. Rubber sandals were the footwear, and each prisoner covered his hair with a stocking cap made from a woman’s nylon stocking.
It should be clear that we were trying to create a functional simulation of a prison — not a literal prison. Real male prisoners don’t wear dresses, but real male prisoners do feel humiliated and do feel emasculated. Our goal was to produce similar effects quickly by putting men in a dress without any underclothes. Indeed, as soon as some of our prisoners were put in these uniforms they began to walk and to sit differently, and to hold themselves differently — more like a woman than like a man.
The chain on their foot, which also is uncommon in most prisons, was used in order to remind prisoners of the oppressiveness of their environment. Even when prisoners were asleep, they could not escape the atmosphere of oppression. When a prisoner turned over, the chain would hit his other foot, waking him up and reminding him that he was still in prison, unable to escape even in his dreams.
The use of ID numbers was a way to make prisoners feel anonymous. Each prisoner had to be called only by his ID number and could only refer to himself and the other prisoners by number.
The stocking cap on his head was a substitute for having the prisoner’s hair shaved off. The process of having one’s head shaved, which takes place in most prisons as well as in the military, is designed in part to minimize each person’s individuality, since some people express their individuality through hair style or length. It is also a way of getting people to begin complying with the arbitrary, coercive rules of the institution. The dramatic change in appearance of having one’s head shaved can be seen on this page.
Stanford. (1999-2009). The Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved July 13, 2009, from http://www.prisonexp.org/
Escalation of Commitment
I found this in the text and felt that it was worth sharing.
“Another distortion that creeps into decisions in practice is a tendency to escalate commitment when a decision stream represents a series of decisions. Escalation of commitment refers to staying with a decision even when there is clear evidence that it’s wrong. For example, consider a friend that has been dating his girlfriend for about 4 years. Although he admitted to you that things weren’t going too well in the relationship, he said that he was still going to marry her. His justification: “I have a lot invested in the relationship!” It has been well documented that individuals escalate commitment to a failing course of action when they view themselves as responsible for the failure. That is, they “throw good money after bad” to demonstrate that their initial decision wasn’t wrong and to avoid having to admit they made a mistake. Escalation of commitment is also congruent with evidence that people try to appear consistent in what they say and do. Increasing commitment to previous actions conveys consistency.
Escalation of commitment has obvious implications for managerial decisions. Many an organization has suffered large losses because a manager was determined to prove his or her original decision was right by continuing to commit resources to what was a lost cause from the beginning. In addition, consistency is a characteristic often associated with effective leaders. So managers, in an effort to appear effective, may be motivated to be consistent when switching to another course of action may be preferable. In actuality, effective managers are those who are able to differentiate between situations in which persistence will pay off and situations in which it will not.”
EBOOK COLLECTION: Ch. 5 – Robbins, S. & Judge, T. (2007). Organizational behavior (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
MGT 521 – Week 6 Individual Assignment
I pulled theses out of the Williams Institute Ethics Awareness Inventory Assessment and wanted to offer them out to the group as possible references for our individual papers. I am not aware of any rules against sharing references.
“Awareness, Articulation, Application: Ethical decision making involves three components – Awareness of the ethical perspectives that serve as the basis for making good ethical choices; Articulation or your ability to explain the principles that underlie your position; and Application, using your understanding of ethical decision making to put principles into action as you approach ethical choices on a daily basis.” Williams Institute Ethics
“A commitment to personal ethics is about developing a moral self capable of dealing with ethical issues as they arise. It is about each of us acquiring an acute awareness of the foundational principles that define our ethical perspectives and those of others. It is about understanding the general concepts and philosophies that define individual ethical styles.” Williams Institute Ethics
“Awareness is the key to developing your personal approach to ethical decision making.” Williams Institute Ethics
“Then as you attempt to work with others in making ethical decisions on a daily basis, Articulation, or the ability to express the basis for your position and to justify the decision-making process you used to reach that position, is critical to the effectiveness of your communication.” Williams Institute Ethics
“The final step in reaching the right decision is application or action – using your understanding of the basis for making good choices and your ability to explain the principles behind your position to integrate ethical decision making into the performance of individual daily tasks.” Williams Institute Ethics
References
Williams Institute Ethics Awareness Inventory Assessment
https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/Vendors/TWI/EAI/
