- Scene from the Stanford Prison Experiment Archive - unknown
In the summer of 1971, 24 college-aged men answered a newspaper ad calling for volunteers for a psychological experiment. The experiment would take up to 2 weeks and paid $15 dollars a day.
The 24 participants, deemed healthy, average and normal by the experiment's psychologists, were randomly assigned to the roles prisoner or guard. Psychologists constructed a mock prison in the Stanford University basement, complete with iron bar cells, a space for solitary confinement, and no windows or natural light. The cells were bugged with video cameras and microphones so the mock guards could monitor conversations. Philip G. Zimbardo, one of the experiment's designers, served as the mock prison superintendent, and the experiment's principal psychologist.
The volunteers designated as prisoners were subjected to a surprise arrest from their homes and brought to the 'prison' to begin the experiment. Nine prisoners filled 3 cells, and 3 guards watched over the prisoners on each of the 8-hour shifts. The experiment was supposed to be an investigation on the nature of humans in situations involving degradation and dehumanization. What followed shocked psychologists, even in light of notions of human psychology set from previous trials, such as the Milgram experiment. Important lessons from the Stanford Prison Experiment are still being discussed today.
Study of Unequal Power Struggle with Dehumanization and Deindividuation
On the second day of the experiment, chaos erupted. A prisoner led fellow prisoners to rebellion. The mock guards, only vaguely instructed to 'maintain law and order' struck back with solitary confinement, beatings, and public embarrassment as one prisoner was stripped naked in front of cell mates. According to Zimbardo, they had to be reminded by psychologists to relax their strict consequences. Three days into the experiment, one traumatized prisoner was released early.
Stanford Prison Experiments Halted
After only 6 days, the experiment was shut down. Principal Investigator Philip Zimbardo said the experiment was stopped before it was even half over because "We had to do so because too many normal young men were behaving pathologically as powerless prisoners or as sadistic, all-powerful guards." He later added, "At the beginning of the study there were no differences between those assigned randomly to guard and prisoner roles. In less than a week, there were no similarities among them; they had become totally different creatures."
Stanford Prison Experiment: What Happened?
Before the Stanford Prison Experiment, the volunteers' identities were specific. They had names, addresses, ages, social security numbers, fingerprints, etc, that were all individual to them. They had individual likes, dislikes, and personalities that set them apart from other people. The volunteers, as far as the experimenters could tell, weren't manifesting any kind of unusual role in society.
Then these volunteers were put into an experiment where they were told to be either a prisoner or prison guard to see the psychological effects of this new role play of inequality for the volunteers. What resulted shed light onto man's darker side.
Stanford Prison Experiment Today
Several documentaries, books, movies and even other psychology experiments have been based on ideas from the ill-fated 1971 experiment. Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment, a documentary written by Zimbardo was released in 1992. A film, The Standard Prison Experiment, based on the experiment is slated for a 2009 release. Das Experiment is a 2001 movie by German director Oliver Hirschbiegel based on events from the SPE.
Sources
Haney, C. & Zimbardo, P.G., (1998). The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy. Twenty-Five Years After the Stanford Prison Experiment. American Psychologist
Zimbardo, P. G., Maslach, C., & Haney, C. (1999). Reflections on the Stanford Prison Experiment: Genesis, transformations, consequences. Obedience to Authority: Current Perspectives on the Milgram Paradigm. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Stephanie Cox - Stephanie earned a B.S. in General Science with minors in physics and professional writing from Portland State University. As a teenager, ...
