ashton's blog

The Stanford Prison Experiment caused tons of controversy. Many people felt that the experiment was not very ethical or safe. There were a few different reasons for this. It’s my opinion that the experiment may not have been very ethical because it wasn’t confidential. People all over the world now know who exactly was involved in the experiment, and there were pictures and videos taken. Also, it could be said to be unethical because the prisoners felt that they weren’t allowed to leave the experiment. They felt this way because the psychologists or “wardens” bribed them and told them to stay. This made it hard for the prisoners to understand they could still leave, especially because of their emotional state. These are only a few of the reasons why the Stanford Experiment was considered unethical by many.

Life and Personality Assessment: http://www.courses.rochester.edu/surveys/niesta/survey1/tmttraitsubmit.htm

In the Life and Personality assessment you were asked questions regarding death, how it effects your thoughts, and what this has to say about your personality. During this survey you rated the questions between strongly agree and strongly disagree. I thought this survey was alright, but did not like how some of the questions seemed repetitive. They continuously asked if you thought about your own death, but used different wording each time.

Beliefs About Social Status:  http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/cgi-bin/surveys/social_status_beliefs/load.cgi#top

In this experiment you were asked questions about high and low social status. You were also given examples of two women. One with low social status and the other with high social status. You then had to answer questions about each one such as if they had good jobs, nice cars, and lots of money. You were also asked personality questions like if they were greedy or incapable or happy. While doing  these questions you rated the questions between one and seven. One if you strongly agreed and seven if you strongly disagreed. This was a good method to use but there were so many questions that it got very boring after a while. Doing this survey I learned my perception on social status and how important it was to me.

Personality Soup:  http://www.psychology.soton.ac.uk/isurvey/finish.php

In this experiment you were asked an array of different questions about yourself.  This was done to learn about something called social desirability. The experimenters wanted to find out how sure of themselves people were and if they tend to put over-positive answers to questions.  This experiment was done in survey form. You were asked lots of different types of questions. On some you had to put if you agreed or disagreed, one you had to put if you thought a statement was true or false about yourself, and on another you had to check if the characteristics applied to yourself or not. This was a good method to use and I found this survey very interesting and not boring at all. While doing this survey I learned how sure of myself I was and how I responded to groups.