Wild Eggs

The Stanford Prison Experiment

03.25.08 | Comment?

In 1971, Dr. Phillip Zombardo of Stanford University conducted a psychology experiment designed to investigate human responses to captivity and its behavioral effects on both authorities and inmates. Normal college students were randomly assigned to play the role of guard or inmate for two weeks in a simulated prison. The “guards” quickly became so brutal that the experiment had to be shut down after only six days.

“The idea was simple: to see how ordinary men, chosen to be the most healthy and ‘normal’ would respond to a radical change to their normal roles in life. Half were to become prison guards, the other half their prisoners. In this experiment there were no half-measures, for it to be effective it had to closely approximate the real experience of prisoners and guards. These participants were in for the ride of their lives.

‘Prisoners’ were ‘arrested’ by a police car with sirens wailing while they were out going about their everyday business. Then they were fingerprinted, blindfolded and put in a cell, then stripped naked, searched, deloused, heads shaved, given a uniform, a number and had a chain placed around one foot.

The other participants were made into guards who wore uniforms and were given clubs. A prison was mocked up in the basement of a Stanford University building.

And so the experiment began.”

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Link to official Stanford Experiment website.
Link to Wikipedia.

Discovering Psychology: The Power of the Situation
This program examines how our beliefs and behavior can be influenced and manipulated by other people and subtle situational forces, and how social psychologists study human behavior within its broader social context. With Dr. Ellen Langer of Harvard University and Dr. Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University.

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