Gaspar Vargas

Prof. Crachiolo

Communication 121

15 Feb 2019

Unethical Experiments

In the documentary, Quiet Rage conducted by Phil Zimbardo it is a unique experiment,

which lead for suffering of innocent people. The theory that I chose to pick for my analysis of

this documentary is Maslow’s Hierarchy Needs. Maslow believes that we need five basic needs

to move forward in life and in this situation the Guards had all five and were able to achieve

power, where as the Prisoners lacked a lot of their needs and became the submissive.

We must first know the five important blocks in Maslow’s theory: 1) Self Actualization 2)

Self-esteem 3) Belonging 4) Safety 5) Physical Needs. Self Actualization has to deal with trying

to better yourself. Self-esteem could either be high or low but the relationships that can impact

you. Belonging deals with being inclusive or having friendships. Safety and Physical needs are

paired together because the are the basic needs to survive such as clothing, shelter and food.

During this experiment there are two groups the Guards and the Prisoners. I will use

Maslow’s theory on both these groups. The guards had both the luxury of having Safety and

Physical needs at their disposal. They don’t have to worry about where to find their basic needs

to survive. When it comes to Belonging the guards were inclusive with each other. They all try to

do the best job at being the Guard and follow the rules. Though not all of them agreed in going

above and beyond and trying to create their own experiments by push people’s buttons to create a

curtain behavior. Dave Eshelman explained that he felt it was his responsibility to give more to
his role as a guard and to even create experiments of his own. In this experiment we see that the

Guards are the ones with the power not only because of their position but because they have

gone out of their way to become a better guard. This gave them high Self-esteem and fueled

them to become better and thriving guards (Self Actualization).

The prisoners are the ones who had to really struggle and by using Maslow’s Theory you

can see why. Let us begin with Safety and Physical needs because these are the fundamental in

building yourself to reach towards the top. The prisoners were in a stable shelter but the

confinements were extreme horrible. Two to three beds in one cell. They were stripped naked

and given basic clothes to show no personality. They were waken up a various times of the night

to check on them. Making them feel disoriented and anxious. One inmate in rebellion to the

guards went on a hunger strike, cutting off physical needs. When it came to Belonging, the

inmates did not have each others back. For example, the guards locked one of the inmates in the

hole and if the other inmates would sacrifice their blankets the inmate in the hole would be let

out. 2/3 said keeping their blanket was in their best interest. The Self-esteem of the prisoners

were probably at a 1/10, because they were being harassed and taunted. For example, stripping

them from their identity like clothes but mainly their names. Stripping them and giving them

names dropped their self confidence and persona. It was so bad that one of the inmates believe

that he was actually a prisoner in a prison. Zimbardo had to explain that this is just an

experiment and that this is not real and had to let him go. It may have not been real but the

suffering that these inmates went through was real. There was no way for the prisoners to each

Self Actualization and better themselves.

 In conclusion, I believe that Maslow’s Theory is more related to this experiment. I

believe that his theory shows how the prisoners could not reach the top if they didn’t have the

basic fundamental structure to survive.