Final answer:
The Stanford Prison Experiment violated ethical codes by failing to protect participants from harm, complicating their ability to withdraw from the study, and not providing adequate debriefing.
The experiment's findings have been questioned due to coaching of participants and issues around its replicability.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Stanford Prison Experiment, led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo, has been widely scrutinized for its ethical lapses. Codes of ethics that were violated during this study include the protection from harm, the right to withdraw, and debriefing.
The participants experienced psychological distress and dehumanizing conditions, with 'prisoners' undergoing emotional torment by 'guards' and the researchers not stopping the abuse promptly. Participants also seemed to lack the ability to freely withdraw from the experiment, as they were subjected to a realistic arrest process and experienced intense pressures within the simulation's confines, complicating their understanding of their rights to exit the study.
Furthermore, the debriefing process was insufficient in helping participants process the experiment's traumatic events and return to their normal lives.
In light of these ethical concerns, the experiment has been compared to real-life scenarios such as the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, highlighting the potential for those in authority roles to enact abusive behaviors.
Additionally, the validity of Zimbardo's findings has been questioned due to the discovery that participants were coached on how to act, casting doubt on whether the outcomes were authentic reflections of human behavior in confinement settings or the result of fulfilling perceived expectations.