Stanford prison experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty-four undergraduates were selected out of 70 to play the roles of both guards and prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Those selected were chosen for their lack of psychological issues, crime history, and medical disabilities, in order to obtain a representative sample. Roles were assigned based on a coin toss.<1>

Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of the guards were judged to have exhibited "genuine" sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be removed from the experiment early. After being confronted by Christina Maslach, a graduate student in psychology whom he was dating,<2> and realizing that he had been passively allowing unethical acts to be performed under his direct supervision, Zimbardo concluded that both prisoners and guards had become too grossly absorbed in their roles and terminated the experiment after six days.<3>

Ethical concerns surrounding the famous experiment often draw comparisons to the Milgram experiment, which was conducted in 1961 at Yale University by Stanley Milgram, Zimbardo's former college friend. Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr wrote in 1981 that the Milgram experiment and the Stanford prison experiment were frightening in their implications about the danger which lurks in the darker side of human nature.<4>

Goals and methods
Zimbardo and his team set out to test the idea that the inherent personality traits of prisoners and guards were key to understanding abusive prison situations. Participants were recruited and told they would participate in a two-week "prison simulation." Of the 70 respondents, Zimbardo and his team selected the 24 males whom they deemed to be the most psychologically stable and healthy. These participants were predominantly white and middle-class.

The "prison" itself was in the basement of Stanford's Jordan Hall, which had been converted into a mock jail. An undergraduate research assistant was the "warden" and Zimbardo the "superintendent". Zimbardo set up a number of specific conditions on the participants which he hoped would promote disorientation, depersonalisation and deindividualisation.

The researchers provided weapons -- wooden batons -- and clothing that simulated that of a prison guard -- khaki shirt and pants from a local military surplus store. They were also given mirrored sunglasses to prevent eye contact.

Prisoners wore ill-fitting smocks and stocking caps. Guards called prisoners by their assigned numbers, sewn on their uniforms, instead of by name. A chain around their ankles reminded them of their roles as prisoners.

The researchers held an "orientation" session for guards the day before the experiment, during which they were told that they could not physically harm the prisoners. In The Stanford Prison Study video, quoted in Haslam & Reicher, 2003, Zimbardo is seen telling the guards, "You can create in the prisoners feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us, by the system, you, me, and they'll have no privacy… We're going to take away their individuality in various ways. In general what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness. That is, in this situation we'll have all the power and they'll have none."

The participants who had been chosen to play the part of prisoners were "arrested" at their homes and "charged" with armed robbery. The local Palo Alto police department assisted Zimbardo with the arrests and conducted full booking procedures on the prisoners, which included fingerprinting and taking mug shots. At the prison, they were transported to the mock prison where they were strip-searched and given their new identities.


Results
The experiment quickly grew out of hand. Prisoners suffered — and accepted — sadistic and humiliating treatment from the guards. The high level of stress progressively led them from rebellion to inhibition. By the experiment's end, many showed severe emotional disturbances.

After a relatively uneventful first day, a riot broke out on the second day. The guards volunteered to work extra hours and worked together to break the prisoner revolt, attacking the prisoners with fire extinguishers without supervision from the research staff.

A false rumor spread that one of the prisoners, who asked to leave the experiment, would lead companions to free the rest of the prisoners. The guards were forced to dismantle the prison and move the inmates to another secure location. When no breakout attempt occurred, the guards were angry about having to rebuild the prison, so they took it out on the prisoners.

Guards forced the prisoners to count off repeatedly as a way to learn their prison numbers, and to reinforce the idea that this was their new identity. Guards soon used these prisoner counts as another method to harass the prisoners, using physical punishment such as protracted exercise for errors in the prisoner count. Sanitary conditions declined rapidly, made worse by the guards refusing to allow some prisoners to urinate or defecate. As punishment, the guards would not let the prisoners empty the sanitation bucket. Mattresses were a valued item in the spartan prison, so the guards would punish prisoners by removing their mattresses, leaving them to sleep on concrete. Some prisoners were forced to go nude as a method of degradation, and some were subjected to sexual humiliation, including simulated homosexual sex.

Zimbardo cited his own absorption in the experiment he guided, and in which he actively participated as Prison Superintendent. On the fourth day, some prisoners were talking about trying to escape. Zimbardo and the guards attempted to move the prisoners to the more secure local police station, but officials there said they could no longer participate in Zimbardo's experiment.

Several guards became increasingly cruel as the experiment continued. Experimenters said that approximately one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies. Interestingly, most of the guards were upset when the experiment concluded early.

Zimbardo argued that the prisoner participants had internalized their roles, based on the fact that some had stated that they would accept parole even with the attached condition of forfeiting all of their experiment-participation pay. Yet, when their parole applications were all denied, none of the prisoner participants quit the experiment. Zimbardo argued they had no reason for continued participation in the experiment after having lost all monetary compensation, yet they did, because they had internalized the prisoner identity, they thought themselves prisoners, hence, they stayed.

Prisoner No. 416, a newly admitted stand-by prisoner, expressed concern over the treatment of the other prisoners. The guards responded with more abuse. When he refused to eat his sausages, saying he was on a hunger strike, guards confined him in a closet and called it solitary confinement.<5> The guards used this incident to turn the other prisoners against No. 416, saying the only way he would be released from solitary confinement was if they gave up their blankets and slept on their bare mattresses, which all but one refused to do.

Zimbardo concluded the experiment early when Christina Maslach, a graduate student he was then dating (and later married), objected to the appalling conditions of the prison after she was introduced to the experiment to conduct interviews. Zimbardo noted that of more than fifty outside persons who had seen the prison, Maslach was the only one who questioned its morality. After only six days of a planned two weeks' duration, the Stanford Prison experiment was shut down.

Continued>>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Or the Milgram studies, for that matter?

Between them, by their negative examples, Milgram & Zimbardo ushered in a new era of ethical standards in psychological research.

:hi:

I don't normally post much, and not usually on so serious topic, but I did want to chime in with a different perspective on Milgram and Zimbardo. I am a psychologist (though not a social psychologist like Milgram and Zimbardo). I also admit I'm not as familiar with Zimbardo's prison study as I am with Milgram's work, so I'll mostly talk about that. Milgram's work is methodologically flawed, without a doubt. Most of the flaws were recognized by Milgram himself, actually, and pointed out by other researchers as is the nature of science. Ethically, however, I think Milgram conducted himself and his study appropriately, all things considered. I often wonder if this methodology was presented to an IRB today whether it would pass. I suspect it would, to be honest, as long as the deception was justified, and the debriefing procedure was clear and thorough.

Milgram always comes up in our discussion of ethical principles in my undergraduate experimental psychology class, and nearly every student will inform me that Milgram's experiments were unethical, yet few are able to provide me with any details about the experiment, other than that Milgram forced people to deliver shocks to other people (which he did not do). I usually require that the students read Milgram's original 1963 paper, and then we discuss the ethical aspects of the research again. We also discuss Milgram's methodology in general, too. I think they come away with a much better understanding of what Milgram was attempting to do, his obligations as an ethical researcher (which I believe he was), and their obligations to their participants as researchers themselves.

You have to remember, Milgram asked a number of psychologists and psychiatrists to estimate the number of participants who would go all the way to the end of the experiment. They estimated that less than 1% would do so. So, Milgram's result, with over 50% going very far, was extremely shocking (!) everyone, including Milgram himself. It's interesting to note that these experts made this estimation in light of atrocities such as the Holocaust. Also, Milgram thoroughly debriefed his participants following the experiment, and followed up on them for many months, to make certain they were not suffering long-term effects. In fact, some actually guessed at the true nature of the experiment. There is no indication that any subjects suffered long-term after-effects from participating in Milgram's studies. He did all this at a time when IRBs did not formally exist, though The Nuremburg Code had already been developed, and was serving as a general guideline with respect to human participants in research.

Another issue with both Milgram and Zimbardo was the fact that subjects were encouraged to continue. Both were studies on the effects of authority on ordinary people. In most studies, participants are reminded that they are free to withdraw from the experiment at any time. For Milgram and Zimbardo, reminding the participants of this at the first sign of discomfort would have defeated the purpose of the experiment, IMO. You could argue that they took it perhaps further than they should, and I won't quibble with you on that. However, I'm not sure there is an effective way to study obedience to authority without some requirement or request that participants adhere to the procedure.

I think the issue is a larger one about the use of deception in psychological research, which seems to go directly against the concept of informed consent. One of the major tasks of any researcher who wishes to use deception, and any IRB which reviews and has to approve the research, involves making the case for the deception. This includes justifying the use of deception, as well as stating clearly how participants will be debriefed at the conclusion of the research. Additionally, while it is a necessary aspect of much of social psychology research (neither Milgram nor Zimbardo could have conducted their studies without it), it also does undermine the credibility of psychologists with the public. There is a general suspicion about psychological research, with many people assuming any experiment in which they participate is not all that it seems to be.

I think Milgram's and to a larger extent Zimbardo's studies are very important to keep in mind now as the nation finally engages in a long overdue discussion of torture. Both studies show us, in stark detail, the things that humans are capable of doing to each other in the right circumstances. But it isn't enough to just show it, which was never the point of either study. We can see human brutality to other humans easily any time we examine history. Milgram and Zimbardo attempted to explain WHY we do the things to each other that we do. Neither study is perfect, some parts of both studies are objectionable. But we dismiss them and studies like them as unethical at our peril.

/takes deep breath and posts!

Edited for missing word.

I even did one study myself that involved real electric shocks (not simulated like Milgram's). Your reply caused me to review the Milgram work, which I hadn't read in more than 40 years. I do recall being told in grad school that there was a relatively high incidence of stress-related problems in some of the subjects of the studies, and that was the real reason for the ethical problems. Looking at the reviews of the studies written since then, I see that these problems were apparently considerably exaggerated. Certainly both the Milgram and Zimbardo work taught us a great deal about human nature.

I'm an ex-academic psychologist myself, currently a clinician.

They don't believe that human beings are intrinsically cruel, and will always BE cruel if given the opportunity. They are willing to give a pass to teachers (who make prison guards look like saints), to Somalian pirates, to various figures who do horrible things.

And if you believe that anyone has changed the rules since these events, well, perhaps that's what they say publicly. There is undoubtedly a Zimbardo running similar experiments out there, privately, and not stopping it.

new edition of the psych book that included Stanford. He said he did it to teach people again how anyone can become a torturer with the right enculturation, and how we really must know that in order to resist.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=zimbardo&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

here's a great Zimvideo about good and evil.

Anyone who believes their own behavior wouldn't deteriorate and become onerous and abusive after extensive training and indoctrination and months or years in such a role is deluding themselves ... dangerously deluding themselves.