Understanding Shyness – Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford prison experiment performed by Philip Zimbardo in the basement of the Stanford Psychology department wherein group of male subjects were divided into two groups – Prisoners and Guards, after a week of experimentation when the experiment was stopped the two groups had started to identify themselves as prisoner or guard. 

The guards with their full authority had becomes sadistic, their only source of enjoyment was derived by harassing the prisoners. The prisoners had lost total control of their situation and had resigned themselves to whims and fanciful punishment of the guards. The prisoners turned their desperation inwards becoming quiet and introvert. And the guards turned their absolute power outwards and becoming more and more extrovert.

 Both the groups had lost the sense of their reality that they were in a psychological experiment. How often do we allow the sadistic world allow us to prison of our mind into confinement? Do we become shy when we are defeated again and again by the world and resign our fate to the world? Do we become quiet in front of the people who are more powerful? Do we express our true belief to such powerful people who have a different opinion?