The Stanford Experiment Film

The Stanford Experiment Film: An Argumentative Essay
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The Stanford Experiment Film
“The Stanford Experiment” is a film based on factual events that were undertaken by Dr. Zimbardo with the aim of understanding how the personality traits of individuals always define who they are. The intensity of the experiment is so severe such that it ends up lasting just six days instead of the stipulated two weeks. Kyle Patrick Alvarez (the director) has been able to create an exact simulation of the experiment. Beyond the trait-character which was the hypothesis of Dr. Zimbardo, I observed that the environment, responsibilities and, one understands the society shape their actions in a confined place like a prison.
In an experiment, there is a need for controlling the variables. However, this has not been the case in the film since the participants had already developed their own understanding of how things happen in prison facilities. One participant refuses to take the role of a guard claiming that “Nobody likes guard” and this ends up forcing Dr. Zimbardo and his assistants to end up selecting them randomly (Alvarez, 2015). Those who ended up being guards needed to adopt a “survival” mechanism to deal with the understanding that guards are never liked and, this could be a reason behind them becoming brutal.
The film appears to prove right the hypothesis of Dr. Zimbardo that the character of a person is based on their personality. Howev…