Slashdot Mirror
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 "Blum's expose -- based on previously unpublished recordings of Zimbardo, a Stanford psychology professor, and interviews with the participants -- offers evidence that the 'guards' were coached to be cruel,"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."
"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."
Has the study been replicated? Have the conclusions been replicated? Looks like a small British study about 15 years ago did; it brought the Stanford experiment results into question, perhaps.
Can someone with more background than mine explain what larges implications this could have for psychology, other than the fact that people are supposed to be corrupted by power and have a bias toward tyranny/oppression, and that prisoners begin to "like" the guards (I believe that was this study)?
Thanks!
-
The participants acted towards expected behaviors to reinforce the study's foregone conclusion at the coaching of Zimbardo.
It wasn't a scientific study.
You can read about it here. https://www.psychologytoday.co...
While I agree that people need to be aware of how easily they can be manipulated and coerced, at least in the short-term, into doing things in the not-too-distant-future that are against their values now, bad science is bad science and should be exposed and retracted as soon as possible.
There are other, more subtle studies that show how people can be influenced by grooming, contextual cues, peer-influence, etc.. The CIA spent decades trying to "deprogram", AKA "brainwash", people without success (Their experiments were not ethical or legal). Additionally, there's a lot of research on the influence of mass media on public values and sentiments; effects can be strong but are usually short-lived and need intensive reinforcement. How values emerge and change in societies is still a complex subject and it's difficult to manipulate in targeted ways.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
There have been doubts about the validity of the Stanford Prison Experiment since the very beginning, and the weight has probably been on the side of the doubters for years now. The same for the famous MIlgram experiment. Those early experiments are famous because everybody learns about them in Psych 101, but they are so far from meeting modern standards of research quality anyone citing them today, except to question the results, would face serious peer review backlash.
I once saw a tape of Zimbardo telling an anecdote of one of his colleagues dropping by the experiment. Zimbardo showed him around and told him what was going on, but the colleague seemed confused. "What is your null hypothesis?" the colleague asked. The crowd Zimbardo was regaling laughed at that as if it were a silly, obtuse question. Actually it was a very good question, and it points to the reason that the Stanford Prison Experiment will likely never be replicated in its original form. Without a null hypothesis, you have no basis for systematically eliminating experimenter bias.
In a modern experiment -- presuming you could get ethical clearance -- your null hypothesis would be that guards do *not* spontaneously exhibit cruel and dehumanizing behavior; you would then carefully remove any hint of encouragement for them to do so. By just throwing them into a situation and seeing what happens, you don't know whether or not what you are seeing is a result of something you unconsciously made them do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
Except this really isn't bad science. Just some of the details of the experimental environment were omitted. There's no difference between what they're saying the professor did and what they did in the Milgram experiment, or any other similar experiment that showed a good percentage of people willingly engaging in horrible acts because of social pressure.
However, because of the omission, it doesn't quite show what is often claimed — that power inherently corrupts — but rather that people who are not used to power, who are given power, and who are then encouraged to abuse it, tend to do so. It's a subtle distinction, though, and largely empty when you really think about it, because in practice, there will always be someone or something encouraging people with power to abuse it. Expecting otherwise borders on pure fantasy.
More to the point, we've essentially seen this experiment reproduced in actual prisons without an experimenting professor encouraging the guards to be abusive. The results have still often been appalling.
So the burden of proof falls on the people making the accusation here to prove that the interference resulted in an invalid experiment from which nothing can be learned. I'm not convinced that this is the case. I'm also not convinced that it would be ethical to attempt to replicate the results, unfortunately, which makes it nontrivial to prove or disprove any such argument either way. Perhaps a similar experiment could be devised that involves an environment less extreme than prison. *shrugs*
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The specific criticisms voiced there are quite known. I'm basing this on my psychology class and the book Zimbardo wrote about it. He freely admits in the appendix that one of the mistakes he made was to interfere with the experiment actively (he took the role of the "prison warden") instead of standing aside as a neutral observer.
And one of the findings of the experiment was precisely that despite "guards" were forbidden to physically assault "prisoners", they anyway found ways to torture them psychologically. And "prisoners", despite knowing about this rule, did not always feel safe.
Every experiment has critics, and that is a good thing. Don't treat science the same way you treat B-star gossip stories. Few experiments are perfect, and criticism is a good way to figure out better ways of doing them.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org