Week 2: Stanford Prison Experiment

I feel that the Stanford Prison experiment began ethically.  Each participant signed a consent form before entering the experiment.  Unfortunately we do not know if the participants were informed of all possible physical and emotional stress that could occur.  I do not believe that the experiment controllers had any idea how intense things would get when they started this experiment.  As the experiment progressed it became clear quickly that the participants were taking their roles very seriously.  In one interview I watched, Philip Zimbardo had to step in and remove one prisoner because he was becoming very emotionally disturbed.  When the controllers tried to remove him the participant did not want to leave, thinking he had to finish what he started.  These prisoners actually began to believe that they were in jail.  Once the controllers began to notice that the participants were having real emotional stress from the experiment it should have stopped.  I feel that the experiment quickly became unethical because it was not stopped sooner.  I feel that the controllers let the experiment go on too long.  I saw some interviews of the participants after the experiment and they still seemed to be having some effects.  I do not know if those participants were followed for some time after the experiment ended but I would be interested to know if they suffered any lasting effects.

Week 1: Introduction

Hello all, my name is Shawn and I am a 25 year old female living in Northern Virginia.  I graduated from UVA in 2008 with a BS in biology and a BA in psychology.  The year after graduation I worked as a kindergarten teacher at a private child care center teaching math and science.  I definitely learned a lot about kids.  For the past couple years I have been working as a medical assistant in various specialties.  I have worked in ophthalmology, dermatology, and currently internal medicine.  My goal is to attend medical school.  I am also looking into doing an accelerated nursing program and I am taking this course as a prerequisite. 

I took a sociology course in college about popular culture which was very interesting so I am looking forward to getting a broader knowledge base about various aspects of sociology.

In between working and taking courses at NOVA I do not have a lot of spare time but I love to read.  I also like to hang out with friends as often as possible.  I like finding new activities to do (like the wine festival I will be attending this weekend!).  I am currently training for the Disney World marathon next January so don't be surprised if you hear me complaining in future posts about how tired I am and how much my legs hurt.

Some of my random favorite things: my favorite color is green, my favorite candy bar is Twix, one of my favorite smells is freshly cut grass, one of my favorite sounds is stepping on crunchy leaves in the fall, and my favorite artist is Van Gogh.  I feel like I'm filling out a Match.com profile :-)

I am excited to get to know everyone else in the class and to read everyone's thoughts on issues.  I am sure we will have a lot of interesting opinions on topics.  Good luck to everyone in the course!