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The Stanford Prisoner Experiment - 40 Years On
cheros writes "It's now 40 years ago that the Stanford prisoner experiment went ugly so quickly it had to be aborted. Stanford has an interesting piece called The Menace Within that looks back on this momentous psychological experiment. From the article: 'What happened in the basement of the psych building 40 years ago shocked the world. How do the guards, prisoners and researchers in the Stanford Prison Experiment feel about it now?'"
By the way, Zimbardo's book about it, The Lucifer Effect is absolutely fascinating. The way they all got so pulled into the experiment is just crazy. Luckily, Zimbardo's grad student girlfriend came around. You see Zimbardo got so pulled into his own role as the experimenter/warden that he lost site of the fact that the experiment had become extremely inhumane and he needed to stop it. They needed new eyes to come in and end it.
What is even more interesting than Zimbardo not ending the thing was the prisoners not ending it. After all, they weren't actually prisoners. They should have just walked away.
He also has a fascinating discussion on Abu Ghraib. He discusses the personalities involved in the events and how it led to it. (The sociopath who started it. His girlfriend Lindy England, who got pulled in. The leader of the facility who couldn't pull the situation under control and who's appeals to superiors fell on death ears.)
It is amazing that we do actually live in a world where people willing become slaves. This experiment gave us great insights into social psychology.
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Now imagine this same experiment being done for for several years instead of days and with no one to step in when things get out of hand.
Now imagine if the guards were told the prisoners were evil terrorists.
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Obviously you have no understanding of the nature of power and desire for it. It has been been well documented since ancient times. And the biggest "experiment" ever in 1920s-30s Germany has been written up in the most convincing manner by many psychologists.
It's too bad they say the experiment should never be performed again. Every student should be required to go through it, and maybe we can mitigate the revival of the savagery we are going through now. Simply reading up on it is not enough.
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Stanford prison experiment
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Aldous Huxley
It hasn't been backed up by other experiments because conducting such experiments violates modern standards of ethics (and in fact arguably violated the standards at that time as well). Similar effects have been observed in the field however, most famously at Abu Ghraib. Obviously those aren't properly controlled experiments, but until we decide as a society that subjecting people to lasting mental and physical harm in psychological studies is okay again, it's the closest we're likely to get.
This experiment is being conducted right now by the TSA.
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Oh.. but it has been repeated recently...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8571929.stm
This is from 2010.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
For the record, Zimbardo has objected to Das Experiment's portrayal of his experiment, on the grounds that (a) it isn't clear which parts are reenactments and which parts are fictionalized, and (b) in his view the movie doesn't properly explain why the study was scientifically important. Read his side of it here.
There's faked and then there's faked.
If you mean "they made the whole thing up like the moon landing," then no. There's no reason to believe that kind of conspiracy.
But based on contemporary accounts, even from Zimbardo himself, it's pretty clear that he stepped well past his role as an objective researcher and became an active instigator -- appointing himself warden and egging on the guards. But even with that acknowledged, the fact that he was able to succeed so easily is part of what makes it an important demonstration.
You should check out the book The Wave, which is a fictionalized telling of a real experiment conducted by a high school teacher to help his students understand how something like the Holocaust could happen without anybody stepping in to stop it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(novel)
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It's too bad they say the experiment should never be performed again. Every student should be required to go through it, and maybe we can mitigate the revival of the savagery we are going through now. Simply reading up on it is not enough.
I've often wondered what would happen if the experiment were repeated with people who were aware of the original outcome. And I mean really aware of it, not just that they heard about it in passing. Would knowledge of how low people can sink keep them on the straight and narrow? If so, it could become a useful training exercise for prison guards.
The way they all got so pulled into the experiment is just crazy. Luckily, Zimbardo's grad student girlfriend came around.
This is one of the most fascinating insights: it's not crazy but typical. These were students who tested average on psychological exams (to the extent you can measure average), and still did these atrocious acts on people just like themselves. On fellow students whose only crime was the flip of a coin. Want further evidence? See the Milgram experiment, where 2/3rds of people were willing to kill another person because an authority figure told them to. Not bad apples, not racists, not evil doers, not terrorists, just people--you and me and our neighbors.
The experiments are no longer allowed in psychiatric studies, but are allowed in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Egypt (under Mubarak, not sure about now), Romania, Israel (where torture testimony is admissible), Afghanistan, and others. Where is Zimbardo's girlfriend now? You, me, our neighbors?
The simple conclusion demonstrated by this experiment is that, while sometimes people will live up to others' expectations for them, we we have an even stronger tendency to live down to what's expected of us. I think Richard Yacco (a "prisoner") made the most insightful comment in the article:
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
When the abuse in Abu Ghraib became public I was surprised by the reactions. Not the shock and/or denial by the public. But the way the soldiers were singled out as a "few bad apples" by people higher up in command.
How apparently normal, non-sadistic, average 20 year olds turned into sadistic guards was classic Zimbardo. I immediately thought of Zimbardo's prison experiment: There doesn't need to be a direct order, all it takes is an environment with unspecific rules and guards wanting to fulfill their role.
Not to defend the soldiers involved in the abuse, but Zimbardo is pretty well known. Either people in charge didn't have the proper skills to set-up a clear structure that would prevent this or they deliberately counted on it to happen, being later able to deny any responsibility and scape-goat the "guards".
Actually, the BBC performed a similar experiment in The Experiment with slightly different results.