Sammi Branch

Sammi Branch

Resocialization in the Stanford Prison Experiment

Resocialization , as defined in Essentials of Sociology, is the process of learning new values, norms, behaviors, and attitudes to fit a new social atmosphere. Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment shows the process of resocialization in normal, male, college students when they are placed in a mock total institution. A total institution is “a place in which people are cut off from the rest of society and where they come under almost total control of the officials who are in charge” (Henslin, 77). Zimbardo’s fake prison is a perfect example of a total institution. Every person the students were in contact with treated their prison as they would any real prison. This, combined with the roles people were given, added to the feeling that it was a real prison.

This scenario shows the process of resocialization, degradation, and the deterioration of role taking. Role taking is how we learn to empathize with others. Degradation is a way to strip someone of their individual identity and replace it with a new one. The degradation ceremony for the students who became prisoners was obvious. They were arrested, finger printed, stripped down and put into new, embarrassing uniforms. They were forced to wear chains around their ankles and were given numbers to replace their names. The degradation ceremony happened fairly quickly for each inmate, but the process of reforming the inmates’ values, norms, and attitudes took longer. The students who became guards went through a degradation ceremony as well but not painful or embarrassing. They got uniforms and accessories to represent their authority, but these changes did not initially cause them harm or suffering so it seemed to be more easily accepted.

The prisoners’ total resocialization took longer than the guards, possibly because they were learning to be subservient and were realizing that the guards had the power. The prisoners were abused and had to learn how to deal with it. They were learning new behaviors and norms. The prisoners had to behave according to the guards and they had to get used to it. This was harder for some than others and in the first four days Zimbardo had to let three prisoners go because they broke down mentally – they couldn’t resocialize to their new roles. Next, the prisoners’ attitudes and values started shifting, but these weren’t affected as quickly as their behaviors and norms. As the experiment went on the prisoners’ attitudes slowly changed from sticking together to an attitude of every man for himself. This also shows a shift in their values. They started out valuing themselves as a group but the more they were broken down by the guards the more they valued their individual well-being. This suggests that the prisoners forgot or were ignoring their ability to empathize with others. Nearing the end of the experiment it didn’t matter if another inmate was suffering as long as you had your blanket to sleep on.

On the other hand, the guards seemed to resocialize fairly easily, although some took to their role more than others. The few that became tyrannical did most of the enforcing Some guards stayed fair and some were even empathetic to the prisoners, but “no good guard ever interfered with a command by any of the bad guards…they never told the others to ease off because it was only an experiment” (Zimbardo, 1-33).This directly opposes the handful of prisoners who were telling the guards off, yelling that it was only an experiment – that it was all fake. This behavior from the prisoners stopped pretty quickly, but it is notable that it happened within the prisoners but not at all within the group of guards.

Resocialization happens differently to different people and is affected by their specific situation. But with this experiment we can observe that there is a process to resocialization and it can cause people to act in a way that is completely different from their usual self. The degradation process is an important part of resocialization and total institution seems to speed the process along. Within a matter of days some inmates were referring to themselves by their numbers instead of their names. The prisoners’ behavior also suggests that what you are being resocialized into affects the process. The prisoners had a harder time giving up their previous norms, behaviors, and attitudes probably because the ones they were forced to accept were not pleasant. This brings up a few questions about how the students were resocialized after they were released. Did they have to go through another resocialization process? Did it take long? Was it met with any resistance? Some of the guards who turned tyrannical could have been disappointed in losing their power, would they have reacted similarly to the students who were turned into prisoners?

Works Cited:

Henslin, James. Essentials of Sociology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2007. Print.

Zimbardo, Philip G. "Pathology of Imprisonment." Society 9.6 (1972): 4-8. Print.