Among psychological experiments there are also those that can be called especially cruel. One of them is the famous Stanford prison experiment, which showed shocking results and was ended ahead of schedule. The subsequent fate of the experiment was no less shocking.
The experiment was conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo, an American social psychologist. During his school years, he was a classmate of Milgram, the author of another famous “cruel” social experiment, to which the Stanford prison experiment is often compared.
During the prison experiment, participants lived in a mock prison set up in the basement of the psychology department. They were all divided into two groups - "guards" and "prisoners" and had to live according to their roles.
Prerequisites and purpose of the experiment
The study was commissioned by the US Navy. It was supposed to find out the nature of conflicts in the Marine Corps and in correctional institutions. It is known that prisons are the focus of conflicts, bullying of some people over others, sadism, “lawlessness,” and official arbitrariness. The situation in the army and navy, as well as in any environment where there is a restriction of freedom, is no less tense. It was necessary to determine why conflicts arise in such institutions and how they proceed. This would make it possible to combat such phenomena.
Participants were recruited through a newspaper advertisement. A large number of people responded, from which Zimbardo chose 24 people who, in his opinion, were most suitable for the experiment - had the best health and were psychologically stable
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Most of those selected were white, male, middle-class college students. Each participant was offered $15 a day, and they had to live in a “prison” for two weeks in total.
The selected 24 men were randomly divided into two groups - “guards” and “prisoners”. The division was carried out fairly - by tossing a coin; however, those who played the role of prisoners later felt that only tall men were chosen as “guards.” In reality, there was no difference in physical performance between the guards and the prisoners.
A senior laboratory assistant was appointed as the “supervisor,” and Zimbardo himself was the manager.
Deal
Students in the role of security guards have completely gotten used to their new status. Most of them, having received unlimited power, demonstrated cruelty. They humiliated prisoners the most at night, believing that video surveillance did not work at that time.
Seeing that events were developing rapidly, on the third day Zimbardo offered the experiment participants, playing the role of prisoners, a deal: they could leave the project by refusing any monetary reward for participating in it. All the prisoners agreed. However, in order to comply with the release procedure, they had to write a petition for clemency, which was subject to consideration by the jury (their role was performed by final year students of the Faculty of Psychology).
Voluntary refusal to receive material compensation for participating in the experiment guaranteed the students the right to immediately leave the makeshift prison. However, they all resignedly wrote a petition for clemency and went to their cells to await the decision of the jury. A few hours later they were informed that the jury had made a negative decision on all requests for clemency. This news caused a hysterical reaction in half of the prisoners.
By the sixth day, the cruelty of the guards reached its climax: they violated all ethical principles, their actions posed a serious danger to the mental health of the prisoners. The experiment had to be stopped.
Progress of the experiment
Zimbardo created many special conditions in his “prison” that were supposed to lead participants to disorientation, loss of a sense of reality, and disappearance of self-identification. So, he gave the guards wooden batons, military-style uniforms and dark glasses with mirrored lenses, behind which their eyes were not visible. The guards chose their uniforms themselves in stores. This group of subjects, unlike prisoners, worked shifts and could return home on weekends, although some were assigned to overtime work (and unpaid).
Conditions for prisoners were much harsher. They were given deliberately ill-fitted robes made of low-quality fabric and rubber slippers; they were not allowed underwear. Zimbardo believed that wearing such clothes, prisoners would take on an unusual posture and feel discomfort. They had to wear tight tights on their heads, imitating shaved heads. Each prisoner wore a small chain around his ankles to remind him of his imprisonment and oppression. Prisoners were addressed only by numbers instead of names.
Immediately before the experiment, the guards attended an initial meeting where they were given no instructions other than that physical violence would not be tolerated. Zimbardo instructed the guards, saying that it was their job to psychologically subdue the prisoners; they had to create in them a feeling of pity, helplessness, suppress their individuality, demonstrate to them their complete arbitrariness and show that it was they, and not the prisoners, who had all the power. Any rebellion against the system must be suppressed - but again without physical violence.
The participants, playing the role of prisoners, were told to sit at home and wait to be “called.” On a certain day, they were suddenly "accused" of armed robbery and arrested - this was done by a real police department. Participants were subjected to a full police search, including fingerprinting, photographing and reading of their license. Then they were brought to the “prison”, where they were also examined, ordered to strip naked, “cleansed of lice” and given prison clothes with numbers sewn on.
The behavior of the participants quickly got out of control. Prisoners experienced sadistic and abusive treatment from guards, and many developed severe emotional distress. Already on the second day, a riot broke out in the “prison,” which the guards suppressed with the help of fire extinguishers. After this, the guards divided the premises into two buildings - “good” and “bad”, settled the prisoners in them and began to pit them against each other. They announced to the inhabitants of each building that there were informants among them. After this, major disturbances in the “prison” no longer occurred. As reported by Zimbardo's consultants who were once prisoners, such measures are indeed used in American prisons.
The “bad” corps was much worse supplied. Its inhabitants' mattresses were taken away and they were forced to sleep on the bare floor. They were often refused food as punishment.
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The guards regularly counted the prisoners. This measure was originally intended to allow the prisoners to get used to their rooms, but the guards turned it into sophisticated torture. During long calculations, the guards harassed the “criminals” and subjected them to physical punishment - for example, they were forced to perform physical exercises for a long time.
The prison soon turned into a gloomy and dirty place. The right to wash became exclusive and could be denied, which the guards very often did. Some prisoners could be forced to clean the toilet with their bare hands.
Of course, the prisoners tried to develop an escape plan. Upon learning of this, Zimbardo tried to negotiate with the police department so that it would provide a real prison cell for the continuation of the experiment as a more reliable room. The police refused Zimbardo, for which he was angry with them for a long time.
Some guards gradually turned into outright sadists. They showed increasing arbitrariness towards the prisoners, especially at night, when it seemed to them that the cells were turned off. All participants in the experiment settled into their roles very deeply, and the guards were sincerely unhappy when the experiment was interrupted early. Zimbardo himself became more and more immersed in research.
One day, prisoners were offered to leave prison “on parole,” but only if they refused to pay. They immediately agreed. However, then the release from prison was cancelled. One of the participants developed a psychosomatic rash all over his body due to this. Many prisoners began to experience confusion and shock; two of them were so severely impaired that they were removed from the experiment and replaced with new participants. One of those who came as a replacement was amazed at the terrible conditions of detention and went on a hunger strike. For this, he was kept in solitary confinement for a long time, forced to constantly hold sausages in his hands. The rest of the prisoners considered him a rowdy and a hooligan. The guards decided to take advantage of these sentiments and offered the prisoners a choice: either they would release the “solitary prisoner,” but then everyone’s blankets would be taken away, or he would remain in his cell, and they would have blankets. The prisoners naturally wanted to sleep under blankets.
Replacement of a participant due to a hunger strike
A participant who suffered a nervous breakdown while in solitary confinement was replaced by a student from among the reserves. Finding himself in the role of a prisoner, he immediately declared that he would not obey the established rules. He tried to initiate a new rebellion by going on a hunger strike, but those participants who were in the “game” from the very beginning did not feel strong enough to openly confront.
As a result, a new prisoner with pronounced leadership abilities, without receiving support, turned into an outcast. The guards ordered the rest of the prisoners to spread rot on this rebel. The strong emotional shock and difficult psychological situation in the pseudo-prison led to the fact that by the evening this young man’s nerves gave out: further participation in the experiment could lead to irreparable consequences.
Why did you have to stop the experiment?
From the very first days, the experiment showed such shocking data that Zimbardo and his assistants began to worry. They could observe the complete psychological breakdown that occurred in each participant. They became completely different people - or rather, everything human quickly disappeared from them. The personality of each of the participants was destroyed. Several of them even had to be excluded from the experiment long before its end.
The immediate reason for ending the experiment ahead of time was the visit to the “prison” of Christina Maslak, who was a graduate student and at the same time Zimbardo’s fiancée. She came to the prison to conduct interviews with prisoners, saw the appalling conditions in the room and demanded that the experiment be stopped. According to Zimbardo, a total of fifty eyewitnesses came to the “prison,” but Christina was the only one of them who protested and spoke out about the unethicality of the study.
The experiment was stopped six days after it began, although it was designed to last two weeks.
Was it really like that?
At the moment, there are many refutations of the true results of this experiment.
According to some reports, the participants themselves admitted that they acted according to a certain scenario that was prescribed to them. That is, throughout the experiment, the guards were given instructions according to which they had to perform certain actions. The participants claim that this was a kind of game; they themselves did not notice any sadistic tendencies in themselves.
Zimbardo himself said that the guards were supposed to make the prisoners feel humiliated, afraid and defenseless, but not a word was said about the methods. That is, the guards used cruelty towards prisoners on their own initiative.
One of the participants, according to him, played psychosis in order to quickly get out of the experiment. He did this in order to get back to studying for the exams. There was no other way for him to leave the experiment. Allegedly, Zimbardo replied that it was impossible to voluntarily refuse to participate, only if there was an urgent need to receive medical or psychiatric help.
Photo by Vic on Unsplash
Douglas Korpi, the same participant in the experiment, threw a tantrum, which the organizers recorded on video. Zimbardo later demonstrated these recordings as proof that the reaction and behavior of people under altered conditions is completely unpredictable.
Zimbardo himself, naturally, denied that one could not voluntarily leave the experiment. To do this, it was necessary to say a code phrase, but whether it was actually written into the contract or not is unknown.
Results and conclusions obtained
The experiment showed that people are ready to dutifully fulfill the roles offered to them if there is an ideology that justifies their actions and is supported by society and the state. In addition, he demonstrated the influence of authority on a person and the development of cognitive dissonance.
In psychology, an experiment is used to illustrate how a situation influences a person’s behavior more than his own personal attitudes. In this way, the study is similar to Milgram's experiment, in which subjects also obeyed authority against their own wishes.
Conduct of the guards
Initially, the Stanford experiment was planned to be carried out for 14 days, but Philip Zimbardo had to stop it early on the 6th day. The prisoners were very happy about this, but the guards, on the contrary, were very annoyed that the experiment was stopped.
The jailers got so into their roles that it was very difficult for them to give up their position. Although, one of the “guards” still said that he felt pity for the prisoners and even wanted to ask Philip Zimbardo to transfer him to a group of prisoners.
An interesting fact is that the jailers came to work without delay, and sometimes even worked overtime without receiving any remuneration for it.
Interesting Facts
Soon after the experiment, bloody riots broke out in several American prisons. On this occasion, Zimbardo contacted the authorities and advised them to apply in prisons the developments that he had arrived at through his experiment.
When a huge scandal broke out at the American prison in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, in 2004, many experts noted its similarities to the Zimbardo experiment. Among these experts was the researcher himself. He was also present at the trial of the guards. Zimbardo argued that it was wrong to place all the blame on a few “unloved” guards, since the true cause of the incident lay in the penal system itself.
In 2022, some researchers discovered that the Stanford experiment may have been staged. French sociologist Thibaut Le Texier discovered strange research notes in the Stanford University archives. Another researcher published an article disproving the results of the Stanford experiment.
Cases of acting by participants were identified, in particular, during interviews with them some time after the experiment.
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In addition, it was stated above that Zimbardo himself instructed the guards how to behave before the study began, and they therefore simply played their assigned roles.
If the experiment is staged, then there is no need to talk about its scientific value. On the other hand, in this case, like the aforementioned Milgram experiment, it demonstrates how completely normal people agree to any, even the most cruel and insane actions, if they are prompted to do so by authority.
The Stanford experiment also demonstrates that psychological research is not immune to distortions caused by subjectivity, bias, and wishful thinking. And psychology itself was sometimes accused of being “unscientific,” and attempts were made to assign it the status of “parascience”—something between real science and pseudoscience. The latter, of course, is clearly overkill. The same Milgram experiment is quite objective, and multiple repetitions showed the same results. The similar Stanford experiment turned out to be simply too theatrical - the participants knew in advance the true conditions and goals of the study.
Placement in prison
To recreate a real arrest, the subjects were unexpectedly arrested in their own homes. They were charged with various crimes, searched, handcuffed and taken to the police station.
There they were fingerprinted and... After this, each prisoner was completely undressed upon arrival at the prison and given appropriate hygienic treatment. Then they were put on prison clothes (without underwear) and sent to a cell.
The senior warden read the rules to the prisoners, which they were obliged to obey. “Criminals” were forbidden to address each other by name. Instead, they were required to recite the numbers written on their forms.
The most cruel warden
The harshest overseer was Dave Eshelman, who later became the owner of the mortgage business. When he became a participant in the Stanford experiment, Dave wanted to stage some kind of “action” so that the press would write about it.
According to Eshelman, he deliberately behaved cruelly in order to make the Stanford experiment as interesting and revealing as possible. Acting skills helped him to behave in the role of an angry and cynical overseer, since at that time he was studying in a theater studio.
Dave himself wondered how long the prisoners would endure his antics and bullying. Eshelman was even surprised that no one tried to stop him. How can we not remember the Stockholm syndrome (see 10 unusual mental syndromes)!
What is good
...what is bad? So, “bad” is “a conscious, intentional act committed with the purpose of harming, insulting, humiliating, dehumanizing or destroying other people who are not guilty of anything; or the use of personal power and authority of the System in order to encourage people or vendita piscina gonfiabile con scivolo to allow them to do such acts in its name. In short, “knowing what is good, doing something bad” is the definition of evil given by Philip Zimbardo in his book dedicated to the Stanford experiment, “The Lucifer Effect. Why good people turn into villains." But what kind of experiment is this?
The role of Christina Maslach
At the time of the experiment, Christina Maslach was Philip's fiancée. It was she who asked her fiancé to immediately stop the unusual experiment at Stanford.
Initially, the girl did not find anything unusual in Zimbardo’s ideas. However, this continued until the moment she herself went down to the basement and saw a terrifying picture of the reality of this unusual research.
Christina was shocked by the behavior of the man she was soon going to marry. It immediately became clear to her that Philip was the victim of his own research, having received unlimited power over conditional captives.
That same day, Christina Maslach told Zimbardo that if he did not stop the experiment immediately, their relationship would end. Philip listened to her opinion and the very next day the experiment was officially stopped.
System
The events at Abu Ghraib brought back memories of the Stanford experiment. Including Philip Zimbardo, who became interested in this story. And he didn’t just become interested, but came to the conclusion: the military command and the government were approaching the matter incorrectly. The accusations only related to the abuses of a few “black sheep” of the US Army. Zimbardo believes that the reason is the System.
“The main lesson of the Stanford prison experiment is simple: situation matters,” Zimbardo writes. – Social situations often have a more powerful influence on the behavior and thinking of individuals, groups, and even national leaders than we are accustomed to think. Some situations have such a strong impact on us that we begin to behave in ways we could not even imagine before... The most important lesson of the STE (Stanford Prison Experiment - NS) is that the System creates the Situation. It provides legitimized support, power and resources through which certain situations arise.”
Thanks to the System, ordinary people allow themselves to behave like tyrants (“after all, this is the norm”). Most people do not think about the rightness or wrongness of this norm. She is correct, and that's all. Because everyone does it, because it’s necessary. Most people don't think so. And if they do, they end up succumbing to the temptation to be like everyone else. It's easier and safer.
