Gandhi once said, “Our thoughts become our words, our words become our actions, our actions become our character, our character becomes our destiny.” That same quote was demonstrated in the 1973 Stanford prison experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo placed an ad in the newspaper asking young males to participate in his experiment and in exchange for a fee of $15 a day. Out of 75 volunteers 24 were chosen as participants. Zimbardo randomly chose males to be the prisoners or guards. The prison pacing was kept as close to real life as possible, Zimbardo converted a basement of Stanford University's psychology building into a mock prison. The Stanford Prison Experiment aimed to test whether people would be able to fill the roles they were told to fill. The results that followed were surprising, neither Zimbardo nor his colleges expected the result. To begin the experiment Zimbardo arrested the “so-called” prisoners, did so without warning and had them taken to the local police station. Once there they were treated like any other prisoner, fingerprinted, photographed and recorded. The prisoners were then blindfolded and taken to Stanford University, in other words to prison. The University has been transformed into a very realistic prison, complete with barred doors and windows, blank walls, and small cells. Once through the doors, prisoners not only lost their freedom but also their reality. They were stripped naked, stripped of hair, all their personal belongings were taken away and locked up. Prisoners received a uniform with a number on it, from then on referred to only by their number. There were 3 guards for the 9 prisoners, who went off every 8 hours. By... half of the paper... for us. As soon as we begin to see ourselves as something else, we begin to act like it. Works Cited Marla Popva. (n/a). The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Most Controversial Psychology Study in History Turns 40. Retrieved from http://brainpickings.org/index.php/Romesh Ratnesar. (July-August 2011). The internal threat. Retrieved from http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page Saul McLeod. (2008). Zimbardo-Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved from http://simplypsychology.org/zimbardo.html Marla Popva. (n/a). The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Most Controversial Psychology Study in History Turns 40. Retrieved from http://brainpickings.org/index.php/Romesh Ratnesar. (July-August 2011). The internal threat. Retrieved from http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page Saul McLeod. (2008). Zimbardo-Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved from http://simplypsychology.org/zimbardo.html