The Process

Coming into the University of Michigan I had no idea what I was going to do; neither in college or afterward. I took filler classes first semester just to get some LSA requirements out of the way, but hoping one might spark an interest (They didn’t, and let me tell you, Calculus I sucks). So I did what I thought was the same thing second semester, with one exception. I took psychology and that class has shaped the rest of my career. Now, as I am coming to the end of my first semester of junior year, I have both a major and a minor I am passionate about. But I wasn’t always so confident.

 

That first class for the minor, I felt so out of place and was questioning if this was the right class for me – the right minor. Everyone seemed so creative and passionate about being able to write in non-academic styles.

 

And then there was me.

 

I wanted to do this minor to improve my academic writing, to do research papers and strengthen my word choice, sentence structure, and clarity of argument. This seemed so different from everyone else’s goals. But, I decided to let it play out; maybe I was just overreacting (Spoiler: I was). By the next class I was feeling better and as the first couple weeks went by I felt more secure; I loved writing that first blog post about myself. I loved the creative freedom the blog post gave me; writing where I could really infuse my personality into it and break out of my shell.

 

Things were going great, both in this class and in my others. Then the second week ended, and without going to deep into it, I experienced my first real loss of a loved one. Writing about it, even this vaguely is still difficult, but writing – and this class – were a big part of my healing process.

 

After everything that happened, I was super drained and kind of numb to everything. It was around the same time that we were beginning to look for origin pieces that we could experiment with. I thought I wouldn’t even care about it and would just end up picking one at random.

 

But, I surprised myself.

 

The second I reread my origin piece on the Stanford Prison Experiment, I knew what my first experiment was going to be. And, even more shocking, I was excited about it. It seemed perfect; the way that Iwould be able to meld my interests together into this huge project. Writing and psychology often go hand in hand with research papers, but this class gave me an opportunity to meld the two in a new and creative way. And the Stanford Prison Experiment had always intrigued me, so it seemed the perfect place to start. I was first introduced to the experiment in my introductory psychology class and I remember the first few seconds of the clip shown as being chilling and fascinating at the same time. There were people shouting, pounding on the walls. It was chaos and the fact that it lasted for as long as it did (though only a few days) is haunting and an uglier side of the field I love so much.

 

Through my first experiment I was able to write in a genre I had never dared venture into: the short story, and I don’t think it went too terribly. The hardest part of this experiment, for me, was comparing myself to the writers that I hold so close to my heart and, in my mind, not measuring up. But it was my first time and, ultimately, I decided to include something similar in my portfolio. This will allow me to immerse my audience in the experiment and add emotional meaning to the often more factual feel of my site.  This was a great way to start my experiment cycle, but I found I wanted to add something to the discussion of the experiment.

 

To this end, I was trying to think of something that hadn’t been done before which was hard, considering writers have had 40 years to tear apart and discuss this experiment. This began my quest for tying past research into new research which became a big part of my final project. This idea began with my second experiment, which centered on applying my research into Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the experiment. For this experiment, I wanted to get back to my writing roots in journalism. I found that I liked the content of the piece but was less inclined to continue with the journal article. I decided to include the content of applying my own research to the SPE due to the originality of the idea and the personal relevance and interest it holds for me.

 

So far, I had explored the experiment itself and future applications and positive applications of the experiment, but something was lacking; the origin. I had always wondered where Zimbardo ever got the idea of running a simulated prison. It was this question that inspired me to write an interview, with answers taken from Zimbardo’s book and an interview with him in Vox.

 

On the surface, the story (so to speak) was complete; I had created a cohesive story from the past to the present. However, I still felt something was lacking in the present application of the experiment. I had applied it to something that I am super passionate about, but the audience for that piece was limited. I wanted to expand this project to something that can be applied and is of interest to all disciplines of research, both in psychology and otherwise. To pull everything together and expand the audience, I decided to do an in-depth look into the issues of the experiment, from a moral, ethical, and cognitive viewpoint.

 

With all these elements to the website, I had hoped to create an immersive experience of the experiment and hopefully garner interest and appreciation for the complex process of designing an experiment.