Experimental Ethics: The Stanford Prison Experiment

I just finished watching the documentary on the Stanford Prison Experiment that was done in 1971 by Dr. Philip Zimbardo. I remember hearing about this experiment during one of my Psychology classes and it seemed pretty interesting but I never really spent much time looking into it myself. However, having taken another look at it because it has come up in our Sociology class, I find it much more fascinating than I previously did. It's amazing how much each of the participants changed, both the guards and the prisoners, in just a few short days. Not only did the participants of the actual experiment change, but in this video Dr. Zimbardo speaks of how his girlfriend went down into the basement to observe on the sixth day. Upon seeing what was happening to the "prisoners" she became distraught and fled the building. Dr. Zimbardo followed her and she proceeded to tell him that he had changed from the person she thought he was if he was allowing the experiment to continue. He quickly realized how he had allowed the power of the situation that he had created, solely on an experimental basis, had transformed him into a completely different person. Many people argue that this was an unethical experiment to perform. Stating that the participants were not given enough information on what they were consenting to and that they were not given enough protection from physical, mental or emotional harm. I agree with a lot of the arguments but I can also see it from the side of the professors who were conducting the experiment. Yes, the subjects were not informed enough on what they were going to be subjected to. But at the same time, the professors didn't think that the experiment would spin so out of control. The students that volunteered were told that they would be part of an experiment on prison life and that there would be guards and prisoners. The professors tried to bring in the most mentally healthy, "normal" people they could because they wanted to see what would happen. In my opinion they took a bit too much of a risk. But again, they honestly seem to have had no idea that it would get so intense. Luckily, though many of the participants that were acting as prisoners had mental breakdowns during the experiment, I haven't found any information stating that any of them suffered permanent disabilities due to the experiment. Because of this, and a few other questionable experiments, the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association was updated. The rules regarding informed consent have been tightened in order to prevent individuals from consenting to unethical experiments.