The Stanford Prison Experiment is undoubtedly one of the most famous and influential experiments in the history of psychological research. The well-known facts about the experiment are that during the summer of 1971, a group of male college students signed up to participate in a research experiment conducted by Stanford University psychology professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo.
They were paid $15 a day (approximately $116 today) to participate in what was planned to be a two-week simulation of a prison environment, with three mock prison cells, a prison “yard,” a solitary confinement room, and a guards’ room set up in a single hallway in the basement of Jordan Hall, Stanford’s psychology building. Nine subjects were randomly assigned to be prisoners, while nine were assigned to be guards, tasked with maintaining law and order without being physically abusive.
Though planned to last up to two weeks, the Stanford Prison Experiment came to an end after six days, largely at the behest of other researchers, including Zimbardo’s future wife, Christina Maslach, who was concerned about guards’ increasingly brutal behavior and the severe emotional distress of the prisoners.
The prevailing takeaway from the experiment, which Zimbardo would discuss for decades afterward, was that even perfectly normal, good people, when put in a position of authority in an “evil” situation, would abuse that power to the detriment of others.
However, in recent years, many nuances of the experiment have come to light, challenging these conclusions. Reassessments of the Stanford Prison Experiment have described it as a dramatic demonstration rather than a valid experiment that followed the scientific method.
Some have even described the findings as deceitful, especially the assessment of the guards’ cruel behavior. It’s now widely accepted that the guards were coached to act in a certain way and that they knew what results the researchers wanted to achieve—drastically taking away from the credibility of the research.
Notably, many of the rules that the guards supposedly created to maintain order in the prison were actually set out by Zimbardo himself. Zimbardo held a training session before the experiment began in which he emphasized the power imbalance and how the guards would have total control—making it clear that he assumed the guards would abuse their position.
In interviews about the experience, some of the guards have discussed how they viewed the experience as acting and took their roles seriously by staying in character, which contradicts the conclusion that they were corrupted by the environment.
Another overlooked aspect of the experiment is that not all of the guards acted the same way, despite Zimbardo’s sweeping statements about their sadistic behavior. In fact, many of the guards did not act sadistically, contradicting the conclusion that circumstances are likely to override individual personality traits. In the experiment, the guards who didn’t feel comfortable mistreating prisoners were encouraged by the researchers to take a tougher approach, a clear interference with the methodology of the experiment in order to produce the desired results.
More about the Stanford Prison Experiment:
- Another major ethical issue with the study was that although several participants asked to leave, they were not allowed to do so. The ethical issues surrounding the experiment mean that it could not be replicated today, as it violates the standards of various organizations, including the Code of Ethics of the American Psychological Association.
David Eshelman, a participant with a theater background who informally became the leader of the guards, has stated that he partly based his persona and behavior on the prison warden in the film Cool Hand Luke. Eshelman has stated that he was “very sympathetic to what I thought their goals were, and that was to prove that prison is a lousy place,” thus performing his role as a stereotypically tough guard especially enthusiastically.
- The Stanford Prison Experiment was widely cited in 2004, when news broke of the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Zimbardo argued that the military incarceration system had brought out the worst in the soldiers who participated in the abuse and that guilt shouldn’t be placed entirely on a few individuals. Zimbardo drew parallels between the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Abu Ghraib abuses in his 2007 book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.
