Was the Stanford Prison Experiment a Sham? (nypost.com)

Frosty Piss writes: The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted in 1971 by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo using college students to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power by focusing on the struggle between prisoners and prison officers. In the study, volunteers were randomly assigned to be either "guards" or "prisoners" in a mock prison, with Zimbardo serving as the superintendent. The results seemed to show that the students quickly embraced their assigned roles, with some guards enforcing authoritarian measures and ultimately subjecting some prisoners to psychological torture, while many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, by the officers' request, actively harassed other prisoners who tried to stop it. After Berkeley graduate Douglas Korpi appeared to have a nervous breakdown while playing the role of an inmate, the experiment was shut down. There's just one problem: Korpi's breakdown was a sham. Dr. Ben Blum took to Medium to publish his claims. "Blum's expose -- based on previously unpublished recordings of Zimbardo, a Stanford psychology professor, and interviews with the participants -- offers evidence that the 'guards' were coached to be cruel," reports New York Post. "One of the men who acted as an inmate told Blum he enjoyed the experiment because he knew the guards couldn't actually hurt him."

"There were no repercussions. We knew [the guards] couldn't hurt us, they couldn't hit us. They were white college kids just like us, so it was a very safe situation," said Douglas Korpi, who was 22-years-old when he acted as an inmate in the study. The Berkeley grad now admits the whole thing was fake. Zimbardo also "admitted that he was an active participant in the study, meaning he had influence over the results," reports New York Post. According to an audio recording from the Stanford archive, you can hear Zimbardo encouraging the guards to act "tough."

Comments

Honestly a bad time to reveal this

[ebrandsberg]

There is a difference between saying it is a sham vs. saying the results weren't true. We can look at Nazi Germany and say with a fair amount of confidence that it was saying something that was true but using results that were falsified to get the result expected. What people will interpret this as saying is that the results themselves were false. Unfortunately (or fortunately) any actual study that could provide a realistic set of evidence on this topic would be considered immoral at this point, so there will be no further data to show that the results could actually be true. Given today's worldwide political climate, I think we need all the reinforcement we can get that good people will do bad things in the right situations and given the right reinforcement. Having this exposed as a fraud now will not help this.

Then so was the holocaust!

[bussdriver]

Think about how much people don't want to believe bad things and how some will go amazing extents... cognitive dissonance is strong stuff.

Nitpicking a past study which nobody has the guts to attempt to properly recreate (or improve upon.) Many real actual atrocities which rhyme with the experiment is all we need to realize that environmental conditions GREATLY influence human behavior.

There is a mountain of science backing the whole concept and even if you debunk just 1 famous example you accomplish nothing except to give all the deniers something to cling onto to perpetuate similar conditions from which future atrocities are born.

Re:Then so was the holocaust!

[Notabadguy]

Nitpicking a past study which nobody has the guts to attempt to properly recreate (or improve upon.) Many real actual atrocities which rhyme with the experiment is all we need to realize that environmental conditions GREATLY influence human behavior.

Um...let me try different words. The reason nobody has the "guts" to recreate this experiment, or use it as a foundation are as follows:
https://www.psychologytoday.co...

1. The study was fake.
2. The control group was fake.
3. The students were paid actors.
4. They were COACHED on expected behavior during the study.
5. The paid actors then:
          -Psychologically abused the inmates as they were coached and encouraged to do.
          -Rebelled / Rioted as the news told them prisoners do.

After 6 days, the "game" wasn't fun for the prisoners anymore, they were tired of the psychological abuse, and Zimbardo ended the study, claiming to have proven something.

All he proved is that 18-22 year old psychology students getting paid $15 a day in 1970 will do what they're told to do. At least for 6 days.

Re:Then so was the holocaust!

[sfcat]

After 6 days, the "game" wasn't fun for the prisoners anymore, they were tired of the psychological abuse, and Zimbardo ended the study, claiming to have proven something.

All he proved is that 18-22 year old psychology students getting paid $15 a day in 1970 will do what they're told to do. At least for 6 days.

Seems to me that you are being deliberately obtuse about busdriver's point. The exact minutia of what levers you can use to get normal "good" people to do horrific things are still debated (which is good). But the basic point that most lay folks derive from the story of the experiment is that "good" people (ie people like them) can be manipulated into doing pretty nasty things. The reason people thought it was so important to make this point was obviously the events in Germany and Japan during WWII.

You are nitpicking about the exact nature of the levers when the lesson that most people will take from this is that "good" people can't be manipulated into doing acts against their current values. That is inherently dangerous, especially right now. Not to mention that even the reproduction you linked to doesn't really invalidate Zimbardo, it says that he was (very very) sloppy about controlling for which levers he was pulling.

"I am startled by the ease with which I could turn off my sensitivity and concern for others for ‘a good cause." seems to say that the basic thing that Zimbardo was trying to prove was true. That is that good people can be manipulated into doing things against their values. Another experiment that shows this basic point is the Milgram experiment. The only differences is what the exact levels you need to pull to get the desired bad behavior. That Zimbardo's work does little to tell us exactly what those levers are doesn't invalidate the basic point that most people take from the story.

Re:They were white college kids

[jez9999]

Times haven't changed at all. People's ability to tell the truth without facing left-wing social repercussions has.

Re:Social experiments with scientific rigor?

[Notabadguy]

Social experiments are difficult to perform with scientific rigor because they use people. It is generally either impossible or impractical to isolate people from outside influences and from unknown issues that bias the experiment. And thus it's difficult to prove anything. For this reason, physical scientists look down upon social science as "soft science".

Social experiments are difficult to perform with scientific rigor because they are rarely conducted by scientists, let alone scientists using the scientific method.

Take the landmark Zimbardo study here. This study came about because of the ongoing prison riots - He coached the guards on how to behave and mistreat the prisoners before the experiment started, "reinforcing" the expected behavior. The "prisoners" behaved as they thought they were expected to behave, based on what they saw on the news: Prison riots.

Imagine if Zimbardo had coached the guards differently: We're testing to see if prison guards can treat prisoners gently and humanely.

That study would have ended reinforcing his message. All of these were 18-22 year old kids, doing as they were told, behaving in accordance with the expectations laid out for them in this fake science.