the horrific stanford prison experiment 1971

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What the Stanford Prison Experiment Taught Us

In August of 1971, Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo of Stanford University in California conducted what is widely considered one of the most influential experiments in social psychology to date. Made into a New York Times best seller in 2007 ( The Lucifer Effect ) and a major motion picture in 2015 ( The Stanford Prison Experiment ), the Stanford Prison Experiment has integrated itself not only into the psychology community but also popular culture. The events that occurred within this experiment, though disturbing, have given many people insight into just how much a situation can affect behavior. They have also caused many to ponder the nature of evil. How disturbing was it? Well, the proposed two-week experiment was terminated after just six days, due to alarming levels of mistreatment and brutality perpetrated on student “prisoners” by fellow student “guards.”

The study aimed to test the effects of prison life on behavior and wanted to tackle the effects of situational behavior rather than just those of disposition. After placing an ad in the newspaper, Zimbardo selected 24 mentally and physically healthy undergraduate students to participate in the study. The idea was to randomly assign nine boys to be prisoners, nine to be guards, and six to be extras should they need to make any replacements. After randomly assigning the boys, the nine deemed prisoners were “arrested” and promptly brought into a makeshift Stanford County Prison, which was really just the basement of the Stanford Psychology Department building. Upon arrival, the boys’ heads were shaved, and they were subjected to a strip search as well as delousing (measures taken to dehumanize the prisoners). Each prisoner was then issued a uniform and a number to increase anonymity. The guards who were to be in charge of the prisoners were not given any formal training; they were to make up their own set of rules as to how they would govern their prison.

Over the course of six days, a shocking set of events unfolded. While day one seemed to go by without issue, on the second day there was a rebellion, causing guards to spray prisoners with a fire extinguisher in order to force them further into their cells. The guards took the prisoners’ beds and even utilized solitary confinement. They also began to use psychological tactics, attempting to break prisoner solidarity by creating a privilege cell. With each member of the experiment, including Zimbardo, falling deeper into their roles, this “prison” life quickly became a real and threatening situation for many. Thirty-six hours into the experiment, prisoner #8612 was released on account of acute emotional distress, but only after (incorrectly) telling his prison-mates that they were trapped and not allowed to leave, insisting that it was no longer an experiment. This perpetuated a lot of the fears that many of the prisoners were already experiencing, which caused prisoner #819 to be released a day later after becoming hysterical in Dr. Zimbardo’s office.

The guards got even crueler and more unusual in their punishments as time progressed, forcing prisoners to participate in sexual situations such as leap-frogging each other’s partially naked bodies. They took food privileges away and forced the prisoners to insult one another. Even the prisoners fell victim to their roles of submission. At a fake parole board hearing, each of them was asked if they would forfeit all money earned should they be allowed to leave the prison immediately. Most of them said yes, then were upset when they were not granted parole, despite the fact that they were allowed to opt out of the experiment at any time. They had fallen too far into submissive roles to remember, or even consider, their rights.

On the sixth day, Dr. Zimbardo closed the experiment due to the continuing degradation of the prisoners’ emotional and mental states. While his findings were, at times, a terrifying glimpse into the capabilities of humanity, they also advanced the understanding of the psychological community. When it came to the torture done at Abu Ghraib or the Rape of Nanjing in China, Zimbardo’s findings allowed for psychologists to understand evil behavior as a situational occurrence and not always a dispositional one.

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The Stanford Prison Experiment

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Cara Lustik is a fact-checker and copywriter.

• Participants
• Setting and Procedure

In August of 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues created an experiment to determine the impacts of being a prisoner or prison guard. The Stanford Prison Experiment, also known as the Zimbardo Prison Experiment, went on to become one of the best-known studies in psychology's history —and one of the most controversial.

This study has long been a staple in textbooks, articles, psychology classes, and even movies. Learn what it entailed, what was learned, and the criticisms that have called the experiment's scientific merits and value into question.

Purpose of the Stanford Prison Experiment

Zimbardo was a former classmate of the psychologist Stanley Milgram . Milgram is best known for his famous obedience experiment , and Zimbardo was interested in expanding upon Milgram's research. He wanted to further investigate the impact of situational variables on human behavior.

Specifically, the researchers wanted to know how participants would react when placed in a simulated prison environment. They wondered if physically and psychologically healthy people who knew they were participating in an experiment would change their behavior in a prison-like setting.

Participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment

To carry out the experiment, researchers set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University's psychology building. They then selected 24 undergraduate students to play the roles of both prisoners and guards.

Participants were chosen from a larger group of 70 volunteers based on having no criminal background, no psychological issues , and no significant medical conditions. Each volunteer agreed to participate in the Stanford Prison Experiment for one to two weeks in exchange for $15 a day.

Setting and Procedures

The simulated prison included three six-by-nine-foot prison cells. Each cell held three prisoners and included three cots. Other rooms across from the cells were utilized for the jail guards and warden. One tiny space was designated as the solitary confinement room, and yet another small room served as the prison yard.

The 24 volunteers were randomly assigned to either the prisoner or guard group. Prisoners were to remain in the mock prison 24 hours a day during the study. Guards were assigned to work in three-man teams for eight-hour shifts. After each shift, they were allowed to return to their homes until their next shift.

Researchers were able to observe the behavior of the prisoners and guards using hidden cameras and microphones.

Results of the Stanford Prison Experiment

So what happened in the Zimbardo experiment? While originally slated to last 14 days, it had to be stopped after just six due to what was happening to the student participants. The guards became abusive and the prisoners began to show signs of extreme stress and anxiety .

It was noted that:

• While the prisoners and guards were allowed to interact in any way they wanted, the interactions were hostile or even dehumanizing.
• The guards began to become aggressive and abusive toward the prisoners while the prisoners became passive and depressed.
• Five of the prisoners began to experience severe negative emotions , including crying and acute anxiety, and had to be released from the study early.

Even the researchers themselves began to lose sight of the reality of the situation. Zimbardo, who acted as the prison warden, overlooked the abusive behavior of the jail guards until graduate student Christina Maslach voiced objections to the conditions in the simulated prison and the morality of continuing the experiment.

One possible explanation for the results of this experiment is the idea of deindividuation , which states that being part of a large group can make us more likely to perform behaviors we would otherwise not do on our own.

Impact of the Zimbardo Prison Experiment

The experiment became famous and was widely cited in textbooks and other publications. According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrated the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior.

Because the guards were placed in a position of power, they began to behave in ways they would not usually act in their everyday lives or other situations. The prisoners, placed in a situation where they had no real control , became submissive and depressed.

In 2011, the Stanford Alumni Magazine featured a retrospective of the Stanford Prison Experiment in honor of the experiment’s 40th anniversary. The article contained interviews with several people involved, including Zimbardo and other researchers as well as some of the participants.

In the interviews, Richard Yacco, one of the prisoners in the experiment, suggested that the experiment demonstrated the power that societal roles and expectations can play in a person's behavior.

In 2015, the experiment became the topic of a feature film titled The Stanford Prison Experiment that dramatized the events of the 1971 study.

Criticisms of the Stanford Prison Experiment

In the years since the experiment was conducted, there have been a number of critiques of the study. Some of these include:

Ethical Issues

The Stanford Prison Experiment is frequently cited as an example of unethical research. It could not be replicated by researchers today because it fails to meet the standards established by numerous ethical codes, including the Code of Ethics of the American Psychological Association .

Why was Zimbardo's experiment unethical?

Zimbardo's experiment was unethical due to a lack of fully informed consent, abuse of participants, and lack of appropriate debriefings. More recent findings suggest there were other significant ethical issues that compromise the experiment's scientific standing, including the fact that experimenters may have encouraged abusive behaviors.

Lack of Generalizability

Other critics suggest that the study lacks generalizability due to a variety of factors. The unrepresentative sample of participants (mostly white and middle-class males) makes it difficult to apply the results to a wider population.

Lack of Realism

The Zimbardo Prison Experiment is also criticized for its lack of ecological validity. Ecological validity refers to the degree of realism with which a simulated experimental setup matches the real-world situation it seeks to emulate.

While the researchers did their best to recreate a prison setting, it is simply not possible to perfectly mimic all the environmental and situational variables of prison life. Because there may have been factors related to the setting and situation that influenced how the participants behaved, it may not truly represent what might happen outside of the lab.

Recent Criticisms

More recent examination of the experiment's archives and interviews with participants have revealed major issues with the research method , design, and procedures used. Together, these call the study's validity, value, and even authenticity into question.

These reports, including examinations of the study's records and new interviews with participants, have also cast doubt on some of its key findings and assumptions.

Among the issues described:

• One participant suggested that he faked a breakdown so he could leave the experiment because he was worried about failing his classes.
• Other participants also reported altering their behavior in a way designed to "help" the experiment .
• Evidence suggests that the experimenters encouraged the guards' behavior and played a role in fostering the abusive actions of the guards.

In 2019, the journal American Psychologist published an article debunking the famed experiment. It detailed the study's lack of scientific merit and concluded that the Stanford Prison Experiment was "an incredibly flawed study that should have died an early death."

In a statement posted on the experiment's official website, Zimbardo maintains that these criticisms do not undermine the main conclusion of the study—that situational forces can alter individual actions both in positive and negative ways.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is well known both inside and outside the field of psychology . While the study has long been criticized for many reasons, more recent criticisms of the study's procedures shine a brighter light on the experiment's scientific shortcomings.

Stanford University. About the Stanford Prison Experiment .

Stanford Prison Experiment. 2. Setting up .

Sommers T. An interview with Philip Zimbardo . The Believer.

Ratnesar R. The menace within . Stanford Magazine.

Jabbar A, Muazzam A, Sadaqat S. An unveiling the ethical quandaries: A critical analysis of the Stanford Prison Experiment as a mirror of Pakistani society . J Bus Manage Res . 2024;3(1):629-638.

Horn S. Landmark Stanford Prison Experiment criticized as a sham . Prison Legal News .

Bartels JM. The Stanford Prison Experiment in introductory psychology textbooks: A content analysis .  Psychol Learn Teach . 2015;14(1):36-50. doi:10.1177/1475725714568007

American Psychological Association. Ecological validity .

Blum B. The lifespan of a lie . Medium .

Le Texier T. Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment . Am Psychol . 2019;74(7):823-839. doi:10.1037/amp0000401

Stanford Prison Experiment. Philip Zimbardo's response to recent criticisms of the Stanford Prison Experiment .

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

By Maria Konnikova

On the morning of August 17, 1971, nine young men in the Palo Alto area received visits from local police officers. While their neighbors looked on, the men were arrested for violating Penal Codes 211 and 459 (armed robbery and burglary), searched, handcuffed, and led into the rear of a waiting police car. The cars took them to a Palo Alto police station, where the men were booked, fingerprinted, moved to a holding cell, and blindfolded. Finally, they were transported to the Stanford County Prison—also known as the Stanford University psychology department.

They were willing participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment, one of the most controversial studies in the history of social psychology. (It’s the subject of a new film of the same name—a drama, not a documentary—starring Billy Crudup, of “Almost Famous,” as the lead investigator, Philip Zimbardo. It opens July 17th.) The study subjects, middle-class college students, had answered a questionnaire about their family backgrounds, physical- and mental-health histories, and social behavior, and had been deemed “normal”; a coin flip divided them into prisoners and guards. According to the lore that’s grown up around the experiment, the guards, with little to no instruction, began humiliating and psychologically abusing the prisoners within twenty-four hours of the study’s start. The prisoners, in turn, became submissive and depersonalized, taking the abuse and saying little in protest. The behavior of all involved was so extreme that the experiment, which was meant to last two weeks, was terminated after six days.

Less than a decade earlier, the Milgram obedience study had shown that ordinary people, if encouraged by an authority figure, were willing to shock their fellow-citizens with what they believed to be painful and potentially lethal levels of electricity. To many, the Stanford experiment underscored those findings, revealing the ease with which regular people, if given too much power, could transform into ruthless oppressors. Today, more than forty-five years later, many look to the study to make sense of events like the behavior of the guards at Abu Ghraib and America’s epidemic of police brutality. The Stanford Prison Experiment is cited as evidence of the atavistic impulses that lurk within us all; it’s said to show that, with a little nudge, we could all become tyrants.

And yet the lessons of the Stanford Prison Experiment aren’t so clear-cut. From the beginning, the study has been haunted by ambiguity. Even as it suggests that ordinary people harbor ugly potentialities, it also testifies to the way our circumstances shape our behavior. Was the study about our individual fallibility, or about broken institutions? Were its findings about prisons, specifically, or about life in general? What did the Stanford Prison Experiment really show?

The appeal of the experiment has a lot to do with its apparently simple setup: prisoners, guards, a fake jail, and some ground rules. But, in reality, the Stanford County Prison was a heavily manipulated environment, and the guards and prisoners acted in ways that were largely predetermined by how their roles were presented. To understand the meaning of the experiment, you have to understand that it wasn’t a blank slate; from the start, its goal was to evoke the experience of working and living in a brutal jail.

From the first, the guards’ priorities were set by Zimbardo. In a presentation to his Stanford colleagues shortly after the study’s conclusion, he described the procedures surrounding each prisoner’s arrival: each man was stripped and searched, “deloused,” and then given a uniform—a numbered gown, which Zimbardo called a “dress,” with a heavy bolted chain near the ankle, loose-fitting rubber sandals, and a cap made from a woman’s nylon stocking. “Real male prisoners don't wear dresses,” Zimbardo explained, “but real male prisoners, we have learned, do feel humiliated, do feel emasculated, and we thought we could produce the same effects very quickly by putting men in a dress without any underclothes.” The stocking caps were in lieu of shaving the prisoner’s heads. (The guards wore khaki uniforms and were given whistles, nightsticks, and mirrored sunglasses inspired by a prison guard in the movie “Cool Hand Luke.”)

Often, the guards operated without explicit, moment-to-moment instructions. But that didn’t mean that they were fully autonomous: Zimbardo himself took part in the experiment, playing the role of the prison superintendent. (The prison’s “warden” was also a researcher.) /Occasionally, disputes between prisoner and guards got out of hand, violating an explicit injunction against physical force that both prisoners and guards had read prior to enrolling in the study. When the “superintendent” and “warden” overlooked these incidents, the message to the guards was clear: all is well; keep going as you are. The participants knew that an audience was watching, and so a lack of feedback could be read as tacit approval. And the sense of being watched may also have encouraged them to perform. Dave Eshelman, one of the guards, recalled that he “consciously created” his guard persona. “I was in all kinds of drama productions in high school and college. It was something I was very familiar with: to take on another personality before you step out on the stage,” Eshelman said. In fact, he continued, “I was kind of running my own experiment in there, by saying, ‘How far can I push these things and how much abuse will these people take before they say, ‘Knock it off?’ ”

Other, more subtle factors also shaped the experiment. It’s often said that the study participants were ordinary guys—and they were, indeed, determined to be “normal” and healthy by a battery of tests. But they were also a self-selected group who responded to a newspaper advertisement seeking volunteers for “a psychological study of prison life.” In a 2007 study, the psychologists Thomas Carnahan and Sam McFarland asked whether that wording itself may have stacked the odds. They recreated the original ad, and then ran a separate ad omitting the phrase “prison life.” They found that the people who responded to the two ads scored differently on a set of psychological tests. Those who thought that they would be participating in a prison study had significantly higher levels of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance, and they scored lower on measures of empathy and altruism.

Moreover, even within that self-selected sample, behavioral patterns were far from homogeneous. Much of the study’s cachet depends on the idea that the students responded en masse, giving up their individual identities to become submissive “prisoners” and tyrannical “guards.” But, in fact, the participants responded to the prison environment in all sorts of ways. While some guard shifts were especially cruel, others remained humane. Many of the supposedly passive prisoners rebelled. Richard Yacco, a prisoner, remembered “resisting what one guard was telling me to do and being willing to go into solitary confinement. As prisoners, we developed solidarity—we realized that we could join together and do passive resistance and cause some problems.”

What emerges from these details isn’t a perfectly lucid photograph but an ambiguous watercolor. While it’s true that some guards and prisoners behaved in alarming ways, it’s also the case that their environment was designed to encourage—and, in some cases, to require—those behaviors. Zimbardo himself has always been forthcoming about the details and the nature of his prison experiment: he thoroughly explained the setup in his original study and, in an early write-up , in which the experiment was described in broad strokes only, he pointed out that only “about a third of the guards became tyrannical in their arbitrary use of power.” (That’s about four people in total.) So how did the myth of the Stanford Prison Experiment—“Lord of the Flies” in the psych lab—come to diverge so profoundly from the reality?

In part, Zimbardo’s earliest statements about the experiment are to blame. In October, 1971, soon after the study’s completion—and before a single methodologically and analytically rigorous result had been published—Zimbardo was asked to testify before Congress about prison reform. His dramatic testimony , even as it clearly explained how the experiment worked, also allowed listeners to overlook how coercive the environment really was. He described the study as “an attempt to understand just what it means psychologically to be a prisoner or a prison guard.” But he also emphasized that the students in the study had been “the cream of the crop of this generation,” and said that the guards were given no specific instructions, and left free to make “up their own rules for maintaining law, order, and respect.” In explaining the results, he said that the “majority” of participants found themselves “no longer able to clearly differentiate between role-playing and self,” and that, in the six days the study took to unfold, “the experience of imprisonment undid, although temporarily, a lifetime of learning; human values were suspended, self-concepts were challenged, and the ugliest, most base, pathological side of human nature surfaced.” In describing another, related study and its implications for prison life, he said that “the mere act of assigning labels to people, calling some people prisoners and others guards, is sufficient to elicit pathological behavior.”

Zimbardo released video to NBC, which ran a feature on November 26, 1971. An article ran in the Times Magazine in April of 1973. In various ways, these accounts reiterated the claim that relatively small changes in circumstances could turn the best and brightest into monsters or depersonalized serfs. By the time Zimbardo published a formal paper about the study , in a 1973 issue of the International Journal of Crim__i__nology and Penology , a streamlined and unequivocal version of events had become entrenched in the national consciousness—so much so that a 1975 methodological critique fell largely on deaf ears.

Forty years later, Zimbardo still doesn’t shy away from popular attention. He served as a consultant on the new film, which follows his original study in detail, relying on direct transcripts from the experimental recordings and taking few dramatic liberties. In many ways, the film is critical of the study: Crudup plays Zimbardo as an overzealous researcher overstepping his bounds, trying to create a very specific outcome among the students he observes. The filmmakers even underscore the flimsiness of the experimental design, inserting characters who point out that Zimbardo is not a disinterested observer. They highlight a real-life conversation in which another psychologist asks Zimbardo whether he has an “independent variable.” In describing the study to his Stanford colleagues shortly after it ended, Zimbardo recalled that conversation: “To my surprise, I got really angry at him,” he said. “The security of my men and the stability of my prison was at stake, and I have to contend with this bleeding-heart, liberal, academic, effete dingdong whose only concern was for a ridiculous thing like an independent variable. The next thing he’d be asking me about was rehabilitation programs, the dummy! It wasn’t until sometime later that I realized how far into the experiment I was at that point.”

In a broad sense, the film reaffirms the opinion of John Mark, one of the guards, who, looking back, has said that Zimbardo’s interpretation of events was too shaped by his expectations to be meaningful: “He wanted to be able to say that college students, people from middle-class backgrounds ... will turn on each other just because they’re given a role and given power. Based on my experience, and what I saw and what I felt, I think that was a real stretch.”

If the Stanford Prison Experiment had simulated a less brutal environment, would the prisoners and guards have acted differently? In December, 2001 , two psychologists, Stephen Reicher and Alexander Haslam, tried to find out. They worked with the documentaries unit of the BBC to partially recreate Zimbardo’s setup over the course of an eight-day experiment. Their guards also had uniforms, and were given latitude to dole out rewards and punishments; their prisoners were placed in three-person cells that followed the layout of the Stanford County Jail almost exactly. The main difference was that, in this prison, the preset expectations were gone. The guards were asked to come up with rules prior to the prisoners’ arrival, and were told only to make the prison run smoothly. (The BBC Prison Study, as it came to be called, differed from the Stanford experiment in a few other ways, including prisoner dress; for a while, moreover, the prisoners were told that they could become guards through good behavior, although, on the third day, that offer was revoked, and the roles were made permanent.)

Within the first few days of the BBC study, it became clear that the guards weren’t cohering as a group. “Several guards were wary of assuming and exerting their authority,” the researchers wrote. The prisoners, on the other hand, developed a collective identity. In a change from the Stanford study, the psychologists asked each participant to complete a daily survey that measured the degree to which he felt solidarity with his group; it showed that, as the guards grew further apart, the prisoners were growing closer together. On the fourth day, three cellmates decided to test their luck. At lunchtime, one threw his plate down and demanded better food, another asked to smoke, and the third asked for medical attention for a blister on his foot. The guards became disorganized; one even offered the smoker a cigarette. Reicher and Haslam reported that, after the prisoners returned to their cells, they “literally danced with joy.” (“That was fucking sweet,” one prisoner remarked.) Soon, more prisoners began to challenge the guards. They acted out during roll call, complained about the food, and talked back. At the end of the sixth day, the three insubordinate cellmates broke out and occupied the guards’ quarters. “At this point,” the researchers wrote, “the guards’ regime was seen by all to be unworkable and at an end.”

Taken together, these two studies don’t suggest that we all have an innate capacity for tyranny or victimhood. Instead, they suggest that our behavior largely conforms to our preconceived expectations. All else being equal, we act as we think we’re expected to act—especially if that expectation comes from above. Suggest, as the Stanford setup did, that we should behave in stereotypical tough-guard fashion, and we strive to fit that role. Tell us, as the BBC experimenters did, that we shouldn’t give up hope of social mobility, and we act accordingly.

This understanding might seem to diminish the power of the Stanford Prison Experiment. But, in fact, it sharpens and clarifies the study’s meaning. Last weekend brought the tragic news of Kalief Browder’s suicide . At sixteen, Browder was arrested, in the Bronx, for allegedly stealing a backpack; after the arrest, he was imprisoned at Rikers for three years without trial . (Ultimately, the case against him was dismissed.) While at Rikers, Browder was the object of violence from both prisoners and guards, some of which was captured on video . It’s possible to think that prisons are the way they are because human nature tends toward the pathological. But the Stanford Prison Experiment suggests that extreme behavior flows from extreme institutions. Prisons aren’t blank slates. Guards do indeed self-select into their jobs, as Zimbardo’s students self-selected into a study of prison life. Like Zimbardo’s men, they are bombarded with expectations from the first and shaped by preëxisting norms and patterns of behavior. The lesson of Stanford isn’t that any random human being is capable of descending into sadism and tyranny. It’s that certain institutions and environments demand those behaviors—and, perhaps, can change them.

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Stanford Prison Experiment

• Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment

About the Stanford Prison Experiment

Carried out August 15-21, 1971 in the basement of Jordan Hall, the Stanford Prison Experiment set out to examine the psychological effects of authority and powerlessness in a prison environment. The study, led by psychology professor Philip G. Zimbardo, recruited Stanford students using a local newspaper ad. Twenty-four students were carefully screened and randomly assigned into groups of prisoners and guards. The experiment, which was scheduled to last 1-2 weeks, ultimately had to be terminated on only the 6th day as the experiment escalated out of hand when the prisoners were forced to endure cruel and dehumanizing abuse at the hands of their peers. The experiment showed, in Dr. Zimbardo’s words, how “ordinary college students could do terrible things.”

This exhibit includes documentation of the experiment, including images and audiovisual recordings, that some viewers may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.

Samples from the Collection

Photographs

Video Recordings

Transcripts

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Inside the prison experiment that claimed to show the roots of evil

The Stanford prison experiment was the classic demonstration of how power can bring out the worst in us. But now it seems it was more about showbiz than science

By Gina Perry

10 October 2018

Philip Zimbardo in 1971. He is now 85 and still gives talks

Duke Downey/Polaris/eyevine

IN A darkened auditorium in September 2008, I sat in the audience awaiting the start of a presentation entitled “The psychology of evil” by social psychologist Philip Zimbardo. Suddenly, the doors at the back of the theatre burst open, lights flashed and Santana’s song Evil Ways blared from the speakers. A man with slicked-back black hair and a devilish pointy beard danced up the aisle towards the stage, snapping his fingers in time with the music. Zimbardo’s flamboyant entrance was startling, given the nature of the talk.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Zimbardo’s knack for performance is one of the reasons his Stanford prison experiment is one of the most famous psychological studies of the 20th century, alongside research into obedience carried out by his high-school classmate, Stanley Milgram .

Eschewing conventional academic reporting, Zimbardo’s first account of the experiment was a sensational piece that appeared in a supplement of The New York Times , showcasing his skill as a storyteller. The article kicked off by detailing how, one sunny morning in Palo Alto, California, in 1971, police swooped on the homes of nine young men. They were bundled into squad cars, taken to the police station, charged, then blindfolded and transported to the Stanford County Jail, where they met their guards.

The “jail” was actually a set-up in the basement of a building at Stanford University. The prisoners were one half of a group of volunteers, the other half being assigned the role of guards. In what Zimbardo described as “a gradual Kafkaesque metamorphosis of good into evil”, these seemingly well-adjusted young men became increasingly brutal as guards. They “repeatedly stripped their prisoners naked, hooded them, chained them, denied them food or bedding privileges, put them into solitary confinement, and made them clean toilet bowls with their bare hands”, Zimbardo wrote. “Over time, these amusements took a sexual turn, such as having the prisoners simulate sodomy on each other.” The prisoners, humiliated and victimised, suffered such emotional distress that Zimbardo, playing the role of all-powerful prison superintendent, terminated the two-week experiment after just six days.

The experience made the key players famous – not least because Zimbardo captured some of the experiment on film and in now-familiar photos. The images showed aggressive-looking guards in tinted aviator shades, clutching police batons, and cowed, shackled prisoners sitting in line with bags over their heads.

The Stanford prison experiment in 1971 started with lifelike arrests of volunteers

Philip G. Zimbardo

The experiment led Zimbardo to conclude that normal people could be transformed into sadistic tyrants or passive slaves, not because of any inherent personality flaws but through finding themselves in a dehumanising environment: context was king. And suddenly, so was Zimbardo. Overnight, he became the go-to expert on prison reform, and over the following decade he appeared at a series of Congressional hearings and advisory panels on the US prison system.

The Stanford experiment might have started as a psychological exploration of incarceration, but Zimbardo and countless media commentators since have reached for it to illuminate an ever-widening range of behaviours – police brutality, corporate fraud, domestic abuse, genocide. Every invocation of the experiment has cemented it in the public imagination. The experiment has become enshrined in the psychology curriculum for its simple and compelling conclusion, that corrupt environments can turn good people evil. And of course it has made the leap to popular culture, inspiring documentaries, books and dramatisations. The most recent feature film based on it was 2015’s The Stanford Prison Experiment , for which Zimbardo was a consultant.

Battered credibility

Zimbardo was elected president of the American Psychological Association in 2002 and in 2012 received the American Psychological Foundation’s gold medal for lifetime achievement. Despite Zimbardo’s recognition and career honours, and his experiment being in all the textbooks, academic psychology is ambivalent about it. Not surprising, given that the experiment’s scientific credibility has taken a battering.

On the one hand, with his high profile and media know-how, Zimbardo has done much to promote social psychology. On the other, the experiment’s ethics, methodology and conclusions have long troubled colleagues. The first published criticism, in 1973, attacked the ethics of the study and questioned whether the apparent degradation of the young men was justified, given the experiment’s unsurprising result. By 1975, the methodology of the experiment was also under fire. Zimbardo’s claims that the results support the view that behaviour is determined by circumstances, not personality have also been robustly challenged by a growing number of researchers since then. After all, critics argued, the guards’ behaviour was hardly spontaneous: they knew they were expected to behave like tyrants and were encouraged to do so. And by Zimbardo’s own admission, two-thirds of them did not act sadistically, undermining his claim that the situation had an overpowering influence on their actions.

How did a study so flawed become so famous? First, there’s the powerful idea that evil lurks inside us all, waiting for the right – or wrong – circumstances to be called forth. The experiment itself may be shocking, but the way it echoes archetypal stories of sinfulness make it hard to shake off.

Then there is Zimbardo himself, a compelling narrator who inserts himself front-and-centre in the drama. In that first published account, Zimbardo admitted to a growing sense of unease over his role as architect of an experiment of such cruelty. His epiphany – helped along by a visit from his then girlfriend, who was appalled at his behaviour – that he too had been corrupted by power was what prompted him to call the experiment off. This acceptance of blame both disarms critics of the ethics of the experiment and suggests that we can trust him to give an unvarnished account of the research. There are echoes of biblical conversion stories; Zimbardo’s subsequent involvement in prison reform and more recently in a project to train ordinary people to become “heroes” are a form of atonement. “I want to be remembered not as Dr Evil,” Zimbardo tells me, “but as Dr Good.”

His public performances, TV appearances and TED talks have an evangelical flavour . Let’s face it, “good vs evil” sells, and it circumvents the hassle of trying to understand the subtleties of human psychology.

Zimbardo also has a talent for reframing the “lessons” of the Stanford experiment to capture the prevailing zeitgeist. In 2004, the study made the headlines when it emerged that American military police had abused and tortured prisoners inside Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison . The public debate about how US soldiers could behave so appallingly raised comparisons with the experiment, rekindling Zimbardo’s career as a government-appointed expert. In a Boston Globe editorial, he wrote, “ The terrible things my guards [at Stanford] did to their prisoners were comparable to the horrors inflicted on the Iraqi detainees .” In reality, the terrifying and degrading acts of physical, psychological and sexual abuse meted out at Abu Ghraib were way beyond anything experienced by Zimbardo’s prisoners.

Philip Zimbardo captured the degradation of prisoners in his experiment on film

Chuck Painter/Stanford News Service

But this fresh attention sparked a more critical examination by journalists, who bypassed Zimbardo and sought out the people who took part. Cracks soon appeared in Zimbardo’s tightly controlled narrative.

In interviews with researchers and participants, an alternative story emerged. In a 2004 article in the Los Angeles Times , journa list Alan Zarembo reported that “prisoner” Douglas Korpi was disgusted with the experiment and Zimbardo’s exploitation of it. Both Korpi and Dave Eshelman, who was often depicted as one of the more sadistic guards , spoke of a staged “experiment”, and that they had behaved in order to fulfil their role as paid participants. That undermined Zimbardo’s insistence that his participants unquestioningly accepted the reality of the dramatic situation.

In 2011, Zimbardo admitted the study’s limitations . “It wasn’t a formal experiment. My colleagues probably never thought much of it,” he told an interviewer. In a high-profile blog post in 2013, textbook author Peter Gray decried the inclusion of the experiment in the teaching of psychology, and later called it “an embarrassment to the field”.

In April this year, French author Thibault Le Texier published the book Histoire d’un Mensonge (“History of a Lie”). Le Texier compared archival records with Zimbardo’s published accounts, listened to audio recordings and video footage of the experiment that had been edited out of public presentations, and interviewed research staff, former “guards” and “prisoners”. He concluded that Zimbardo’s claims were overblown and his findings hollow.

In a subsequent article on the Medium website , journalist Ben Blum confronted Zimbardo with the contradictions Le Texier had uncovered. Zimbardo pointed to the fame of the experiment as his defence. He later published a rebuttal on his website, infuriating critics of his research by dismissing them as “bloggers” and labelling their findings “differences in interpretation”. Only time will tell if these recent revelations will diminish the experiment in the public imagination.

If social psychology can be said to have attained the status of religious teachings, then Zimbardo is one of the field’s best-known preachers. And like a good preacher, Zimbardo represents the story of the experiment as a timeless parable. “Famous studies like Milgram’s obedience to authority, Mischel’s marshmallow test, the Stanford prison experiment, they raise moral issues and offer lessons about the psychology of temptation,” Zimbardo tells me. “Think about the Lord’s prayer. What is the key line? ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ There are temptations all around us, and who gives in and who resists, this is a fundamental thing about human nature. This is what all these experiments explore and that gives them great public appeal.”

“I want to be remembered not as Doctor Evil, but as Doctor Good”

In his 2007 bestseller The Lucifer Effect , Zimbardo appealed to readers to look inwards. “Could we, like God’s favourite angel, Lucifer, ever be led into the temptation to do the unthinkable to others?” He promised readers a journey that will take in “genocide in Rwanda, the mass suicide and murder of People’s Temple followers in the jungles of Guyana, the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, the torture by military and civilian police around the world, and the sexual abuse of parishioners by Catholic priests…” Then he adds that the “one… thread tying these atrocities together” comes from “the Stanford Prison Experiment”.

Through his story of a descent into the basement hell, the suffering, the epiphany, the ascent, transformation and redemption, Zimbardo offers a powerful message of hope about human nature: we all have the potential to be saints rather than sinners. It’s seductive to think that in the fight between good and evil we can all be winners through the redemptive power of psychological knowledge. Shame that, as far the Stanford prison experiment is concerned, it’s more showbiz than science.

This article appeared in print under the headline “The evil inside us all”

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The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation

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Philip Zimbardo is best known for his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). Early in his career, he conducted experiments in the psychology of deindividualization, in which a person in a group or crowd no longer acts as a responsible individual but is swept along and participates in antisocial actions. After moving to Stanford University, he began to focus on institutional power over the individual in group settings, such as long-term care facilities for the elderly and prisons. His research proposal for a simulated prison was approved by the Stanford University Human Subjects Research Review Committee in July 1971. He built a mock prison in the basement of the University’s psychology building and recruited college-aged male subjects to play prisoners and guards. The study began on Sunday, August 8th, and was to run for 2 weeks but ended on Friday morning August 13th. In less than a week, several of the mock guards hazed and brutalized the mock prisoners, some of whom found ways of coping, while others exhibited symptoms of mental breakdown.

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. — attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead

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I wish to thank Chris Herrera, Jonathan K. Rosen, David Segal and Ruth Spivak for their comments on this chapter.

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Perlstadt, H. (2023). The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation. In: Assessing Social Science Research Ethics and Integrity. Clinical Sociology: Research and Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34538-8_8

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Participants in the infamous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment reflect on how that study changed their lives

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Stanford University’s alumni magazine has a fascinating article in its July/August issue about the infamous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment , a psychological study of prison life that went horribly wrong.

The study has, of course, been the subject of several books and documentaries. It has also been referred to frequently during the past decade in the wake of disclosures of abuses by U.S. military and intelligence personnel at prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. But to mark the study’s 40 th anniversary, Stanford alum (and Bloomberg Businessweek deputy editor) Romesh Ratnesar went back to several of the experiment’s key participants and asked them for their recollections of what happened during those six days in the basement of the Stanford psychology building and how it changed their lives. If you’re unfamiliar with the study, this article would be a good place to begin.

The experiment was led by professor Philip Zimbardo , then in his late 30s. He and his team recruited 24 male students, who were randomly divided into two groups: prisoners and guards. The students were told they would be paid $15 a day and that the experiment would run for two weeks.

It lasted only six days.

As Ratnesar explains, “no one knew what, exactly, they were getting into. Forty years later, the Stanford Prison Experiment remains among the most notable — and notorious — research projects ever carried out at the University. For six days, half the study’s participants endured cruel and dehumanizing abuse at the hands of their peers. At various times, they were taunted, stripped naked, deprived of sleep and forced to use plastic buckets as toilets. Some of them rebelled violently; others became hysterical or withdrew into despair. As the situation descended into chaos, the researchers stood by and watched — until one of their colleagues finally spoke out.”

In addition to Zimbardo, Ratnesar interviewed a graduate student who assisted with the study, two of the student “guards,” one of the “prisoners” (who led a “prison revolt” during the experiment), and the female psychologist who became appalled when she saw what was going on and ultimately persuaded Zimbardo to halt the experiment.

Here’s a reflection about the experiment from the graduate student, Craig Haney , who is now a psychology professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, an authority on the psychological effects of incarceration, and an advocate for prison reform:

I … realized how quickly we get used to things that are shocking one day and a week later become matter-of-fact. During the study, when we decided to move prisoners to different parts of the prison, we realized that they were going to see where they were and be reminded they’re not in a prison — they’re just in the psych building at Stanford. We didn’t want that to happen.

So we put paper bags over their heads. The first time I saw that, it was shocking. By the next day we’re putting bags on their heads and not thinking about it. That happens all the time in real correctional facilities. You get used to it. I do a lot of work in solitary-confinement units, on the psychological effects of supermax prisons. In places like that, when prisoners undergo the so-called therapy counseling, they are kept in actual cages. I constantly remind myself never to get used to seeing the cages.

And here is Zimbardo’s recollection of the moment he realized the truth of what was happening in the experiment — that it was out of control:

We had arranged for everyone involved — the prisoners, guards and staff — to be interviewed on Friday by other faculty members and graduate students who had not been involved in the study. Christina Maslach, who had just finished her PhD, came down the night before. She’s standing outside the guard quarters and watches the guards line up the prisoners for the 10 o’clock toilet run. The prisoners come out, and the guards put bags over their heads, chain their feet together and make them put their hands on each other’s shoulders, like a chain gang. They’re yelling and cursing at them. Christina starts tearing up. She said, “I can’t look at this.”

I ran after her and we had this argument outside Jordan Hall. She said, “It’s terrible what you’re doing to these boys. How can you see what I saw and not care about the suffering?” But I didn’t see what she saw. And I suddenly began to feel ashamed. This is when I realized I had been transformed by the prison study to become the prison administrator. At that point I said, “You’re right. We’ve got to end the study.”

Maslach was dating Zimbardo at the time, and soon became his wife. Interestingly, it was that relationship, she told Ratnesar, that enabled her to speak out. She said she wasn’t sure that she would have had the courage to confront Zimbardo if they had been only work colleagues.

The experiment generated immediate controversy. Although a 1973 review by the American Psychological Association found that the experiment hadn’t breached existing ethical standards, those standards were later revised to ensure against any similar kinds of behavioral studies.

You can read all the interviews, and see photos of the participants (including some taken during the experiment itself) at Stanford Magazine’s website .

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The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971): An Exploration of Human Behavior and Its Implications

Updated: Oct 23, 2023

Journey with us through the corridors of human behavior as we delve into the profound insights and philosophical implications of the Stanford Prison Experiment, a seminal study that unveils the eerie influence of situational forces on human actions

Introduction: an odyssey into the human psyche.

In the realm of psychology and philosophy, there exist studies that challenge the very essence of human behavior. The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971), orchestrated by Philip Zimbardo, is such an exploration—a microcosm of the human condition within the confines of an artificial prison environment. In this discourse, we embark on a journey to dissect the study's intricacies and unravel the profound philosophical questions it raises about the nature of human behavior.

Chapter 1: Genesis

The early 1970s were a period of intellectual ferment, marked by a desire to question the norms and boundaries of human understanding. Philip Zimbardo, a pioneering psychologist, posed a daring question: Could the ordinary individual, when immersed in extraordinary circumstances, manifest behaviors hitherto unimaginable? This inquiry became the genesis of the Stanford Prison Experiment, a meticulously designed study to scrutinize the fundamental facets of human nature.

Chapter 2: Behind The Scenes

The subterranean chambers of Stanford University served as the crucible for this psychological experiment. Participants, selected without prejudice, were assigned roles as either guards or prisoners within a simulated prison environment. Here, the delineation between reality and role-play blurred as the experiment commenced—a poignant theatrical portrayal of the human psyche.

Envision this scenario: the guards, once unassuming students, donned uniforms and wielded authority, promptly revealing a latent propensity for cruelty and sadism. Simultaneously, the prisoners, stripped of their identities and dignity, grappled with psychological torment. It was an exploration into the human condition—a descent into a labyrinth of power dynamics and vulnerability.

Chapter 3: The Erosion of Morality

Originally planned for a two-week duration, the experiment was terminated after a mere six days. During this brief period, the study unveiled an unsettling revelation—the swift erosion of moral boundaries. Guards transitioned from peers to oppressors, prisoners succumbed to psychological distress, and the ethical foundations of the experiment dissolved. Even Zimbardo, the orchestrator, was shaken by the intensity of the transformation.

Chapter 4: Insights Unveiled

The Stanford Prison Experiment transcends the confines of its artificial setting, compelling us to grapple with profound insights and philosophical inquiries:

Illusion of Exceptionalism: The study challenges the belief in individual exceptionalism, illustrating how ordinary individuals can harbor the potential for darkness within. It disrupts the notion that certain individuals are immune to malevolent behaviors.

The Power of Authority: The experiment underscores the potent influence of authority on human actions. It serves as a poignant reminder of historical instances where individuals in positions of power perpetuated atrocities, emphasizing the need for vigilance in power dynamics.

The Role of Conformity: Through the prisoners' compliance with oppressive rules, the study unveils the formidable force of conformity. It prompts reflection on the extent to which societal norms can induce individuals to partake in actions contrary to their personal values.

Fragility of Ethical Boundaries: The rapid dissolution of ethical boundaries within the experiment challenges our preconceived notions of moral steadfastness, urging contemplation on the malleability of ethical norms under certain conditions.

Context and Behavior: Above all, the experiment illuminates the pervasive role of context in shaping human behavior. While an extreme case, it encourages reflection on the profound influence of circumstances in determining our choices and conduct.

To Put It Simply

The exploration of human behavior is an ongoing philosophical odyssey. The Stanford Prison Experiment, with its eerie revelations and ethical complexities, forms but one facet of this inquiry. It beckons us to delve deeper into the labyrinth of human nature, raising questions that transcend the boundaries of psychology and philosophy.

In parting, consider this reflection: the human psyche is a complex tapestry, intricately woven from the threads of circumstance, choice, and human nature itself. The Stanford Prison Experiment stands as a stark reminder that even the most ordinary souls, when immersed in extraordinary circumstances, may embark on a harrowing journey into the abyss of human behavior. Our quest to unravel the mysteries of our existence continues, one philosophical contemplation at a time.

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Milgram Obedience Study (1961): Exploring the Depths of Human Obedience and Its Ethical Quandaries

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Now a major film, to be released this week, decades after the “experiment.”.

Posted July 15, 2015

By Philip Zimbardo

Forty-four years ago, I conducted a research experiment that could have been the bane of my existence. Instead, what has become known as the Stanford prison experiment (SPE) drove me to extensively pursue the question: Why do good people do evil things? After three decades of research on this subject, I recorded my findings in The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Random House, 2007). But the SPE also lead me to study why, in difficult situations, some people heroically step forward to help others – oftentimes complete strangers - while others stand by and watch. The psychological time warp experienced by participants of the SPE – not knowing if it was day or night or what day it was - lead to my research in our individual time perspectives and how these affect our lives. Rethinking shyness as a self-imposed psychological prison led me to conduct research on shyness in adults, and then create a clinic in the community designed to cure shyness.

The Experiment in a Nutshell

In August 1971, I lead a team of researchers at Stanford University to determine the psychological effects of being a guard or a prisoner. The study was funded by the US Office of Naval Research as both the US Navy and the US Marine Corps were interested in the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners. In the study, 24 normal college students were randomly assigned to play the role of guard or inmate for two weeks in a simulated prison located in the basement of the Stanford Psychology Department building. But the guards quickly became so brutal, and I had become so caught up in my role as superintendent, that the experiment had to be shut down after only six days.

Challenging the Truth

There seems to be powerful silent barriers to dealing with new truths emanating from psychological laboratories and field experiments that tell us things about how the mind works, which challenge our basic assumptions. We want to believe our decisions are wisely informed, that our actions are rational, that our personal conscience buffers us against tyrannical authorities, and also in the dominating influence of our character despite social circumstances. Yes, those personal beliefs are sometimes true, but often they are not, and rigidly defending them can get us in trouble individually and collectively. Let’s see how.

Denial and Finger Pointing

When we discover two of three ordinary American citizens administered extreme electric shocks to an innocent victim on the relentless commands of a heartless authority, we say, “no way, not me.” Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram’s obedience to authority research has been in the public arena for decades, yet we ignore its message of the power of unjust authority in undercutting our moral conscience. Similarly, the SPE research made vivid the power of hostile situational forces in overwhelming dispositional tendencies toward compassion and human dignity. Still, many who insist on honoring the dominance of character over circumstance reject its situational power message.

In 2004, people around the world witnessed online photos of horrific actions of American Military Police guards in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib Prison against prisoners in their charge. It was portrayed as the work of a “few bad apples” according to military brass and Bush administration spokesmen. I publicly challenged this traditional focus on individual dispositions by portraying American servicemen as good apples that were forced to operate in a Bad Barrel (the Situation) created by Bad Barrel Makers (the System). I became an expert witness in the defense of the Staff Sergeant in charge of the night shift, where all the abuses took place. In that capacity I had personal access to the defendant, to all 1000 photos and videos, to all dozen military investigations, and more. It was sufficient to validate my view of that prison as a replica of the Stanford prison experiment—on steroids, and my defendant, Chip Frederick, as a really Good Apple corrupted by being forced to function 12-hours every night for many months in the worse barrel imaginable. My situation-based testimony to the military Court Martial hearings helped reduce the severity of his sentence.

“The Stanford Prison Experiment” Film

On July 15, The Stanford Prison Experiment premiers in New York City. The Los Angeles premier – as well as nationwide release is scheduled for July 17. The film stars Billy Crudup as me and Olivia Thrilby as Christina Maslach, the whistle-blowing graduate student (whom I later married) who pointed out the experiment had gone awry and had changed me to such a degree that she didn’t know who I was anymore. In January, The Stanford Prison Experiment received two awards at the Sundance Film Festival: best screenwriting and best science feature.

What is special about the The Stanford Prison Experiment movie is the way it enables viewers to look through the observation window as if they were part of the prison staff watching this remarkable drama slowly unfold, and simultaneously observe those observers as well. They are witnesses to the gradual transformations taking place, hour- by- hour, day- by- day, and guard shift- by- guard shift. Viewers see what readers of The Lucifer Effect book account can only imagine. As these young students become the characters inhabited in their roles and dressed in their costumes, as prisoners or guards, a Pirandellian drama emerges.

The fixed line between Good, like us, and Evil, like them, is relentlessly blurred as it becomes ever more permeable. Ordinary guys soon slip into doing extraordinarily bad things to other guys, who are actually just like them except for a random coin flip. Other healthy guys soon get sick mentally, being unable to cope with the learned helplessness imposed on them in that unique, unfamiliar setting. They do not offer comfort to their buddies as they break down, nor do those who adopt a “good guard” persona ever do anything to limit the sadistic excesses of the cruel guards heading their shifts.

Finally, the movie also tracks the emotional changes in the lead character—me-- as his compassion and intellectual curiosity get distilled and submerged over time. The initial roles of research creator-objective observer are dominated by power and insensitivity to prisoner suffering in the new role of Prison Superintendent. The six-day process of transformations in the original experiment is crunched down to 2 hours, but the magic of the movie’s acting, directing and editing psychologically expands that time frame’s full force. We feel the power of social situations dominating personalities; as viewers are encouraged to ponder:

What kind of Guard would I be? What kind of Prisoner? What kind of Superintendent? And would I have blown the whistle to end this drama sooner, or not?

My hope is that this movie can do what my writings about this special research into human nature have not been fully able to do. Perhaps now viewing and reliving this adventure will enable the general public to better appreciate the value of what “research shows” about mind, behavior and the pervasive power of situational forces.

Here is a recent Huffington Post interview that includes the movie trailer:​

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stanford-prison-experiment-creator-… ?

Visit the official Stanford Prison Experiment website to learn more about the experiment that inspired the film: www. prisonexp.org

Heroic Imagination

I should add that along with continuing research in time perspectives and time perspective therapy , my new mission in life has been to empower everyone to wisely resist negative situational forces and evil by becoming Everyday Heroes in Training. Our non-profit Heroic Imagination Project (HIP) http://heroicimagination.org/ teaches ordinary people how to stand up, speak out and take effective actions in challenging situations in their lives.

Working and learning together, we can create a new generation of ordinary everyday heroes who will do extra-ordinary deeds of daily heroism in their families, schools, businesses, and communities.

Phil Zimbardo

Learn more about yourself and how to cope with stress and anxiety , visit www.discoveraetas.com .

For in depth information about how your life is affected by the mental time zones that you live in, please check out our website: www.timeperspectivetherapy.org , and our books: The Time Cure at www.timecure.com and The Time Paradox at www.thetimeparadox.com

Rosemary K.M. Sword and Philip Zimbardo are authors, along with Richard M. Sword, of The Time Cure: Overcoming PTSD with the New Psychology of Time Perspective Therapy.

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Stanford Prison Experiment

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Producer : Zimbardo, Philip G.

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What An Experiment at Stanford Taught Us About Human Behavior

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Published on

June 6, 2016

In 1971, a group of researchers leads by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo was studying the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard.

Zimbardo and his team aimed to test the hypothesis that the inherent personality traits of prisoners and guards are the chief cause of abusive behavior in prison.

18 psychologically stable and healthy, male participants (students) were recruited and told they would participate in a two-week prison simulation. The group was intentionally selected to exclude those with any criminal background, psychological impairments, or medical problems.

The Stanford prison experiment

The experiment was conducted in the basement of Jordan Hall (Stanford’s psychology building). 9 out of the 18 participants were assigned the role of prisoner, while the other 9 were assigned the role of the prison guards.

Zimbardo designed the experiment in order to induce disorientation, depersonalization, and deindividualization in the participants.

The guards were provided with batons to establish their status, clothing similar to that of an actual prison guard, and mirrored sunglasses to prevent eye contact.

They were instructed not to physically harm the prisoners or withhold food or drink, but were allowed to take away the prisoners’ individuality in various ways and leads to a sense of powerlessness in the prisoners.

“In this situation, we’ll have all the power and they’ll have none.” Zimbardo can be seen talking to the guards in the footage of the study.

Prisoners wore uncomfortable smocks and stocking caps, as well as a chain around one of their ankle. They were called by their assigned numbers, sewn on their uniform, instead of their name.

To make the experiment as close to the actual prison as possible, the prisoners were “arrested” at their homes and “charged” with armed robbery, then conducted full booking procedures before transported to the mock prison and given their new identities.

The experiment was stopped after 6 days

On August 20, 1971, Zimbardo was forced to announce the end of the experiment, because the participants adapted to their roles well beyond Zimbardo’s expectations, as the guards enforced authoritarian measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture.

Many of the prisoners passively accepted the psychological abuse, and readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to prevent it, at the request of the guards.

Even Zimbardo himself was affected and consumed by the experiment, in his role as the superintendent, permitted the abuse to continue. Two of the prisoners have to quit the experiment early.

The entire experiment was unexpectedly stopped after only six days, because of the objections of a researcher in the team. The results of the experiment favor the situational attribution of behavior rather than dispositional attribution.

Simply put, it seemed that the situation, rather than their individual inherent personalities, caused the participant’s behavior. It also used to illustrate and explain the power of authority.

The roles we all play in life

When you think about it, our life is very similar to (or even the same as) the experiment.

We’re playing one or many roles – as a father/mother, citizen, or employee – from day to day. In most cases, we don’t decide what role we’re playing and who we are; sometimes, we don’t even have the choice for some role such as a son, a citizen of a certain country and a part of a certain race.

Often, our environment and circumstances decide who we are and what we do. It also indirectly shapes our beliefs and identity at the same time.

‍ If we believe we can never be successful and then define ourselves as a failure, we will be quickly consumed by the situation. It’s not about the situation that can’t be changed, but more on our behavior in believing we can do nothing to change. In other word, we learned helplessness.

During the end of the Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbardo invited a Catholic priest who had been a prison chaplain to evaluate how realistic our prison situation was, by interviewing each prisoner individually.

The only prisoner who did not want to speak to the priest was Prisoner 819, who was feeling sick, had refused to eat.

While Zimbardo was talking to him to see what doctor he need to see, he started breaking down and crying hysterically. Zimbardo then took off the chain around his ankle and his cap decided to withdraw from the experiment to see the doctor.

While he was doing this, one of the guards lined up the other prisoners and had them chant aloud: “Prisoner 819 is a bad prisoner!”

‍ As prisoner 819 heard the chanting, he started sobbing uncontrollably and refused to leave. Even he was sick, he wanted to go back to the cell to prove he’s not a bad prisoner.

Zimbardo then said, "Listen, you are not 819. You are [his name], and my name is Dr. Zimbardo. I am a psychologist, not a prison superintendent, and this is not a real prison. This is just an experiment, and those are students, not prisoners, just like you. Let's go."

‍ The prisoner 819 stopped crying suddenly, looked up at Zimbardo like a small child awakened from a nightmare, and replied, "Okay, let's go."

The hidden pillars that shape our beliefs

We all face the same situation in real life. We’re trapped in our own state of mind that seems impossible to get out of it. But is it true that our situation is the sole factor that leads to our behavior?

Imagine there is a table in front of you, with only two legs. What is going to happen? It falls. It will never be able to stabilize. Now, add one more legs, it gets much stable. Add another one, now it’s a table.

What about adding another 10? It will be really stable, and you can place a heavier object on top of it. That’s exactly how our belief works. The tabletop is a belief, but what we do not know is that we need those pillars/legs to support it, which is the evidence.

Without the shreds of evidence, your belief is just some destructible ideas.

‍ That’s how people used to believe that the earth is flat and we’re the center of the solar system. And that’s exactly how those crazy ones believe we will be able to fly one day!

But what happens when we have strong pieces of evidence to support our beliefs? Just like how Zimbardo carried out the experiment that makes the role play as real as possible for both prisoners and prison guards.

Every aspect of that experiment was carefully designed to match the real prison environment. That makes the participants believe they are who their roles are (prisoner or prison guard) until they accept that role as a part of their identity.

Beliefs are the building blocks that shape our identity.

The belief-behavior loop: a self-fulfilling prophecy

Rather concluding that the circumstances shape our behavior at a deeper level compared to our individual inherent personalities, I personally think it works as a loop.

Our circumstances and outcomes build and create pieces of evidence to strengthen our beliefs in the first place that lead to the formation of our identity.

In the second phase of the loop, our identity forms our behavior and thus the results that finally become another piece of evidence to strengthen a particular belief again.

There is always outcomes we can’t avoid and change in our life, but to achieve great results, most of us are fighting with the odd. Even successful people have constraints on the situation, their own set of challenges and bad behaviors to break.

I wrote about the impact of identity formation in a few articles before. As mentioned, to break any destructive behavior, we need to first alter our identity.

Here are a few ways to do so especially for those who are living in a situation that seems impossible to change.

Tell yourself the right story

Your beliefs are your perception of the situation. Understand that your situation means nothing without you give it a meaning. In other word, you create the story based on the situation.

Some see failure as the end of the world, some see it as a personal weakness, and some see it as a lesson and experience to learn and expand. Learn how to manage your perception of the situation will first filter through beliefs that form in your head.

Break the pattern and develop new habits

Habits affect our life in an impactful way beyond our imagination. It doesn’t only appear in your day-to-day actions that lead to the results but also embed in our head mentally and psychologically.

The way we think, the emotions we feel, the perceptions we instantaneously default to are habits too, and they affect our life more than our actions because it takes place before our actions. To change your behavior, you first need to break yourself out of the habits that form a destructive identity.

Take tiny actions to change your outcome

While the solutions I mentioned above are done mentally and psychologically, there is still time we’re unsure about the situation and loss of our minds.

When in doubt and confuse, the best way is to take tiny actions that create small changes. It may seem helpless again to do so, but these small actions are what create a bigger impact in the long run.

That indirect became the results and appearance we achieve or receive, which means the change of the situation. Hence, it is going to change your beliefs and identity. If you can’t manage the first phase of the loop, then work it out slowly in the second phase.

• I was inspired to write this article by a question on Quora: What are some psychology facts that people don't know? One of the answers there pointed me to discover more about the Stanford Prison Experiment.
• Story and images of the Stanford Prison Experiment are from prisonexp.org.

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LAPAIRE (2017) - The Grammar of Prison Violence: Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment

2017, Violência, Polidez, Mediação de Conflitos e Acesso à Justiça: Alguns Caminhos. Estacios FIC. Livros, CIVIP, 2017, pp. 9-44

In 1971, Professor Philip Zimbardo and his team staged a controversial experiment in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford University. 24 healthy male students were chosen among 70 applicants and arbitrarily divided into guards and prisoners. Surprise arrests were made in Palo Alto (by real police officers), a makeshift prison was set up and interactions between the subjects were filmed. The Stanford Prison Experiment, as it is now universally known, was meant to last two weeks but had to be terminated after 6 days only “when it became apparent that many of the ‘prisoners’ were in serious distress and many of the ‘guards’ were behaving in ways which brutalized and degraded their fellow subjects.” Mental breakdowns, sadistic behavior and eventually a hunger strike demonstrated “the power of situational determinants in both shaping behavior and predominating over personality, attitudes and individual values” (Zimbardo 1973). Despite the sustained attention paid to verbal behavior during and after the experiment (debriefing sessions were held with all the participants), Zimbardo’s perspective remained primarily behavioral and socio-psychological, with a strong focus on “environmental contingencies” and interpersonal dynamics. The aim of the present study is to establish the centrality of language-based mechanisms in the processes at work: the enactment of power through the systematic defacement of prisoners, the grammatical orchestration of authority and submission through a small set of modal constructions. The mixed data used will be taken from the original video footage available and three successive film adaptations: Das Experiment (Hirschbiegel 2001), The Experiment (Scheuring 2010), The Stanford Prison Experiment (Alvarez 2015).

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In the current work, focus is given on the metaphoric and metonymic language used by Polish and American prisoners, who acquire it as part of the prisonization process. Individuals, in order to merit trust and approval, are in no position to negotiate; to become fully-fledged members of an elite prison subculture, new inmates need to abandon their beliefs, morals and behaviour that characterized them before. Specific prison conditions require special language; much of the undertaking needs to be kept dark, thus, the prison language is coded. The prison secret language system is mainly based on two devices: metaphors and metonymies, whose usage not only points to the fact that they are central to human thought and language, but also that they are paramount to the workings of the prison system.

A careful insight into the human language reveals that the language people use 'mirrors' the surrounding reality, e.g., onomatopoeic words (meow or cling) or words like redskin 'Indian'. One of the areas that is reflected in the language are people themselves. Inquiry into the language people use to describe both themselves and others is valuable for several reasons. First, it tells us which linguistic means are used and to what extent they are used; this, in turn, is important in the study of productivity, e.g., why a compound is chosen over a word created, e.g., by backformation. Second, it offers us a window into the nature of human beings. Third, it gives us a possibility of 'spying on' people's lives through language. And fourth, it informs us on how language shapes people's beliefs, behaviours and how it affects the language used in return. Prison slang has not been studied extensively, given limited access to penitentiaries and the ban of using it outside (imposed by prisoners themselves). However, as prison slang is unique in being used for special purposes, even an apparently facile analysis may prove useful, as it may contain information on prisoners and facilities, which is not directly stated; nevertheless, once decoded may reveal a world that is turned upside down. For this reason, the current work focuses on the neglected area of linguistic research and offers insight into the metaphor-and metonymy-based language used by US prisoners to describe themselves and fellow inmates. Such a study is not only useful from a linguistic point of view but also beneficial to scholars of other disciplines, e.g., psychologists and sociologists.

Journal of Family Violence

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Incarceration

Stephen Bottoms

Almost 50 years on, the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 remains one of the most notorious and controversial psychology studies ever devised. It has often been treated as a cautionary tale about what can happen in prison situations if there is inadequate staff training or safeguarding, given the inherent power differentials between staff and inmates. But what exactly was the ‘situation’ in the simulated prison at Stanford University, and how exactly did the participants respond to it? This article provides a new analysis of the behaviour of the nine Stanford ‘guards’, which draws on unpublished archival records and original interviews with some of the participants. It adopts an interactionist approach, whereby the individual backgrounds and personalities of the participants are seen to inform their behaviour within the situation provided, as well as vice versa. A key suggestion to emerge from this analysis is that the conduct of the three guard shifts, within the experiment, diffe...

Christopher Bell , Laura A. Cariola , Fernanda Carra-Salsberg PhD , Robert Beshara , Andrew Geeves

Prison facilities are special: they are complexes defined by a variety of parameters, whose understanding for an ordinary person is far from perfect. It may be observed that two main cultures clash in prisons: that of jailers and that of inmates. Both groups have different rules of conduct, which results in many misunderstandings and new norms of behaviour created on a daily basis. This, in turn, gives way to a constant creation of unique vocabulary specific to the institution, its inhabitants and employees. It may be said that under such conditions prison language thrives: prison slang is extremely changeable and adapts itself to the current needs of the facility. Thus, the level of linguistic creativity is tremendously high: prisoners base their vocabulary loosely on similarities between animate and inanimate beings, which leads to the development of highly figurative language. The research undertaken here focuses on linguistic creativity in American prison settings, and by doing so, draws attention to the originality and unconventionality of prison slang. Keywords: Conceptual Blending Theory; prison slang; linguistic creativity

Title: Words matter: a call for humanizing and respectful language to describe people who experience incarceration Authors: Nguyen Toan Tran ([email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]) Stéphanie Baggio ([email protected]) Angela Dawson ([email protected]) Éamonn O'Moore (eamonn.o'[email protected]) Brie Williams ([email protected]) Precious Bedell ([email protected]) Olivier Simon ([email protected]) Willem Scholten ([email protected]) Laurent Gétaz ([email protected]) Hans Wolff ([email protected]) Version: 1 Date: 25 Oct 2018 Author’s response to reviews: Geneva, 25 October 2018

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Grzegorz A . Kleparski

In the history of linguistic research attempts to uncover the social, psychological and linguistic complexity captured in prison slang have been-by and large-all but numerous. Among those scholars who concentrated on various aspects related-directly or indirectly-to prison slang one finds Clemmer (1940)-the author of The Prison Community, undoubtedly the cornerstone of modern penological studies, Sykes (1958) who-inspired by Clemmer's (1940) groundbreaking work-published The Society of Captives, DeLisi and Conis (2009), who worked out a comprehensive source on classic and cutting-edge contemporary data related to correctional topics, including prison slang, and Cardozo-Freeman and Delorme (1984), who offer a unique, twofold way of

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