Jeffery D Whippo Gives His Assessment of the Psychological Importance of the Stanford Prison Study on Leadership

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Jeffery D Whippo Gives His Assessment of the
Psychological Importance of the Stanford Prison
Study on Leadership
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About Stanford prison study conducted by Philip
Zambardo in 1973

• Jeffery David Whippo, a well-educated expert in
  the areas of Educational Psychology and
  Leadership explains that the Stanford prison
  study was conducted by Philip Zambardo in 1973 to
  investigate how readily people would conform to
  the roles of both guard and prisoner during a
  role-playing exercise that simulated life in
  prison.
• Jeff says that at that time there had been a
  great deal of reports of prison guard brutality
  and Zimbardo wanted to see if this was due to the
  sadistic personalities of the guards or if this
  behavior had more to do with the prison
  environment.

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Zambardo Wanted To Study Was Disposition vs.
Situation, Believes Whippo

• From a psychological standpoint, Jeff Whippo
  believes that what Zambardo wanted to study was
  disposition vs. situation.
• Jeff says that Zambrano thought that both the
  prisoners and the guards may have the sort of
  personalities that made conflict inevitable.
• He indicates that prisoners may display a lack of
  respect for the law, for order, and for the
  guards and conversely the guards may have had
  domineering and aggressive internal traits.
• He further explains that the rigid power
  structure of the social environment of the
  prisons may have also been a contributor to the
  behaviors of both guards and prisoners.

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How Would the Dispositional Hypothesis Be
Confirmed?

• Jeffery D Whippo suggests that the dispositional
  hypothesis would be confirmed if the prisoners
  and guards in the experiment behaved in a
  non-aggressive manner, conversely if the behavior
  of the guards and prisoners during the
  role-playing experiment was the same as in a real
  prison, the situational hypothesis would be
  confirmed.
• Jeff describes how during the experiment it was
  quickly evident that the situational hypothesis
  would be confirmed.
• The prison guards socialized into the role of
  prison guards similarly to guards in real prisons
  where their behavior had brutal and sadistic
  tendencies.
• Jeff explains that the prisoners also socialized
  into the real prisoners as they felt helpless and
  submitted to the guards behaviors.

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Whippo Also Describes the Concept of the Group
Norm

• Jeffery Whippo also describes that the concept of
  the group norm was present for both the guards
  and the prisoners.
• He says that the guards and prisoners quickly
  lost their true sense of personal identity
  because of the uniforms they wore and the
  situations they were placed in manifested what
  was the social norm.

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Thank You Jeffery David Whippoy