Stanford prison experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) was a psychology experiment to see the effects of becoming a prisoner or a prison guard on human behaviour and psychology.^[1] The experiment ran from 15 to 21 August 1971. It was led by Dr Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. In the experiment, 24 student volunteers were assigned to be either a ‘guard’ or a ‘prisoner’ in a fake prison at the flip of a coin, and Zimbardo was the prison superintendent. They were paid 15$ a day. The experiment was intended to run for two weeks. Some of the guards quickly became authoritarian and began psychologically torturing the prisoners. For this reason, the experiment had to be stopped after only six days. Five prisoners left the experiment early, because of severe psychological stress. Zimbardo concluded that certain situations can cause good people to behave in a way that they normally would not have predicted.^[2]

Those volunteers selected to be "guards" were given uniforms specifically to de-individuate them. They were also instructed to prevent prisoners from escaping. The experiment officially started when "prisoners" were arrested by real Palo Alto police. Over the following five days, psychological abuse of the prisoners by the "guards" became increasingly brutal. Psychologist Christina Maslach visited to evaluate the conditions. She was upset to see how study participants were behaving and she told Zimbardo. After this, Zimbardo ended the experiment on the sixth day.^[3]

The Stanford Prison Experiment is used in many introductory psychology textbooks to show the impact of power and authority on human behaviour.^[4]

The experiment is controversial for a few reasons: demand characteristics, which causes the participants to behave in the way they think the researcher wants them to behave. There are other ethical issues with the Stanford Prison Experiment, and Zimbardo has been criticised for interpreting the results to fit his previous expectations.^[4]

1. ↑ Zimbardo, P. G., Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Jaffe, D. (1971). The Stanford prison experiment. Zimbardo, Incorporated. https://web.stanford.edu/dept/spec_coll/uarch/exhibits/spe/Narration.pdf^{[permanent dead link]}
2. ↑ Zimbardo, Philip G., Christina Maslach, and Craig Haney. "Reflections on the Stanford prison experiment: Genesis, transformations, consequences." Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on the Milgram paradigm (2000): 193-237.
3. ↑ "8. Conclusion". Stanford Prison Experiment. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Cite error: The named reference :1 was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).