Question

Was the Zimbardo Prison experiment valid and reliable ?

Answer 1

No, the Zimbardo Prison experiment was not valid and reliable.

Reasons are following:

(1)The purpose of this experiment was to understand the development of norms and the effects of roles, labels, and social expectations in a simulated prison environment. But this aim or goal was not met because the experiment was terminated soon.

(2)Ethical Issues: The study has received many ethical criticisms, including lack of fully informed consent by participants as Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in the experiment (it was unpredictable).

(3)Also, the prisoners did not consent to being 'arrested' at home.

(4)This experiment in which regular college students placed in a mock prison suddenly transformed into aggressive guards and hysterical prisoners & thus was deeply flawed experiment.

Kindly do like the Answer!
Thank you!!!