![]() The new evidence suggests there was a lot more going on. Zimbardo stated over and over the behavior seen in the experiment was the result of their own minds conforming to a situation. But the new evidence suggests that the main conclusion of the experiment - the one that has been republished in psychology textbooks for years - doesn’t necessarily hold up. The “prisoners” really did rebel at one point, and the “guards” were cruel. These new findings don’t mean that everything that happened in the experiment was theater. In a thoroughly reported exposé on Medium, journalist Ben Blum found compelling evidence that the experiment wasn’t as naturalistic and un-manipulated by the experimenters as we’ve been told.Ī recording from the experiment reveals that the “warden,” a research assistant, told a reluctant guard that “the guards have to know that every guard is going to be what we call a ‘tough guard.’” The warden implored the guard to act tough because “we hope will come out of the study is a very serious recommendation for reform.” The implication being that if the guard didn’t play the part, the study would fail.Īdditionally, one of the “prisoners” in the study told Blum that he was “acting” during a what was observed to be a mental breakdown. This month, the scientific validity of the experiment was boldly challenged. The tale, which was made into a feature film, has been a lens through which we can understand human-rights violations, like American soldier’s maltreatment of inmates at the Abu Ghraib in Iraq in the early 2000s. That, in the absence of firm instructions of how to act, we’ll act in accordance to the roles we’re assigned. The lesson drawn from the research was that situations can bring out the worst in people. The situation grew chaotic, and the experiment, meant to last two weeks, had to be ended after five days. Very quickly, the guards became cruel, and the prisoners more submissive and depressed. For decades, the story of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment has gone like this: Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo assigned paid volunteers to be either inmates or guards in a simulated prison in the basement of the school‘s psychology building.
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