REVELATIONS IN SCIENCE: What the Stanford Prison Experiment Taught Us
Art Design: huxley.media via Photoshop inspired by René Magritte’s painting «Portrait of Stephi Langui», 1961
Recently, the most popular news websites reported the death of American social psychologist Philip Zimbardo (1933–2024). It’s unlikely that many of those who read this news remembered his last name. However, upon seeing in the text what a sensational, controversial, and still unassessed case he led, readers would agree that this event deserved mention. After all, it was Zimbardo who, back in 1971, conceived, conducted, and abruptly halted — before even reaching half of the planned duration — the famous Stanford Prison Experiment.
PRISONERS AND GUARDS
T
he very idea of the experiment originated from the U.S. Navy leadership. Increasing conflicts in Navy prisons, combined with constant issues within the Marine Corps, prompted American admirals to seek scientific help. The fact that this began to manifest during the height of the Vietnam War did not seem like a convincing explanation to them. Ultimately, it once again confirmed the well-known paradoxical statement: for any problem, there are three ways to solve it — right, wrong, and military.
It is curious how the military decided to trust such an order to Philip Zimbardo, an activist of anti-war movements and a prison critic. His scientific reputation was high enough, and the clients probably decided that the personality of the researcher wouldn’t matter — the scientific result should be an objective truth, and who achieves it is irrelevant. It should be this way, but is it always?
Out of 76 volunteers, 24 participants were selected — all white middle-class students. They were split in half into «prisoners» and «guards» — fairly, by flipping a coin. The «guards» bought themselves military uniforms and wooden clubs. The organizers provided them with mirrored sunglasses to hide their eyes while the «prisoners» were given smocks and rubber flip-flops.
No underwear was allowed, and they were prohibited from wearing their own. However, their heads weren’t shaved — everyone was simply instructed to wear something tight, like stockings, to make them look bald. In addition, each prisoner had a chain attached to their ankle so they wouldn’t forget who they were.
A prison was built: three tiny cells, each 1.8 by 2.7 meters, for 12 people! Each cell had three beds, a washbasin, and a toilet — nothing more. There were also showers and toilets, but they could only be used with the permission of the «guards». Another cell, without furniture, in which one could only stand, was called «the hole» — a punishment cell. Now everything seemed ready — time to begin.
LIFE IN A FAKE PRISON
The experiment began with the «prisoners» being abruptly arrested at their homes by the police, without prior warning, for «participation in a robbery». Their rights were read to them, they were photographed, fingerprinted, stripped naked, sprayed with some sort of insecticide, then dressed in prison garb and shoved into cells. Three «prisoners» were placed in each cell, while three were kept in reserve.
The first day went relatively smoothly. At 2:30 a.m., everyone was awakened, lined up in the hallway facing the wall, and a «roll call» was conducted (of course, everyone was present — where would they go?). On the second day, a trio in one of the cells rebelled, barricaded the door with their beds, and refused to obey the «guards». The others supported them.
What were the «guards» to do — since they were forbidden from beating the «prisoners» or leaving them without food and water? However, no one forbade them from dousing the rebels with cold foam from fire extinguishers! The rebellion was quickly suppressed, and the instigators were placed in the «hole» for several hours. From that point on, things escalated in ways that left everyone astonished…
The «guards» demonstrated remarkable creativity — such ingenuity could have been put to much better use… They designated one cell for the «good prisoners» — there, they were fed better, bullied less, and allowed to use the toilet more frequently (others were not always so lucky). Occasionally, the «guards» temporarily moved certain «prisoners» to the privileged cell, then spread rumors that this was a reward for «snitching».
The imagination of the «guards» was astonishing in its variety. Forcing the prisoners to do push-ups until they collapsed, commanding them to clean toilets with their bare hands, demanding that they play tag (remember, the prisoners were not given underwear, so their smocks would lift, exposing everything…), waking them up in the middle of the night for a roll call lasting up to an hour — these were just a few examples. When they did take the «prisoners» to the toilet, it was only with a paper bag over their heads — so they couldn’t see anything around them.
Since the «guards» did not know about the continuous surveillance, it was discovered that their sadistic tendencies grew stronger at night when they thought no one was watching them. Those «guards» who did not personally engage in cruelty made no effort to curb the enthusiasm of their colleagues.
One of the most brutal «guards» later recalled: «I quickly lost control of myself. When you put on the glasses, you put on a mask that hides your identity. It allows you to behave in ways you would never behave without it».
PSYCHE IN CRISIS
By the second day, one of the «prisoners» simulated a nervous breakdown in order to leave the experiment. However, he was not immediately released, despite promises to everyone that they could leave at any moment. He was first mocked, called weak, then was pressured to return, with promises of no punishment if he would inform the others. He refused and continued to cause a scene until Zimbardo finally decided to replace him.
Other «prisoners» also tried to leave the experiment (none of the «guards» did!). They were ready to forgo their promised reward (not a huge sum, but not insignificant either). But their promises were completely ignored, and they were left in the cells.
On the third day, Zimbardo arranged a meeting between the «prisoners» and their parents. The prisoners were given a decent meal and made to shower, shave, and clean their cells. Cheerful music was played, and for a whole 10 minutes, parents could speak with their children. Everything went calmly.
One of the mothers expressed concern — her son’s appearance seemed dreadful to her. Zimbardo smiled and replied that her son was a real man and would, of course, overcome the hardships. Everyone was satisfied. Until…
PREMATURE END
The experiment was planned for fourteen days, but it was terminated on the sixth day. There were several reasons for such a harsh decision. Not all of the parents who had seen their children during the meeting with the experiment participants were completely at ease. Some of them contacted a lawyer, who visited the prison and spoke with the «prisoners». Zimbardo writes that the lawyer did not offer any solutions and was not particularly disturbed by what he saw, but whether that was truly the case is something no one will ever know.
The video recordings of the experiment were also concerning — the «guards», unaware of the surveillance, behaved in ways that even frightened Zimbardo, who had already become quite immersed in the role of the «prison warden», and his behavior was worsening with each day. They didn’t just make the «prisoners» do push-ups — they placed a foot on the back of the «prisoner» while doing so, and it had only been a few days! Interestingly, many of the «guards» often worked overtime, and no one ever demanded additional pay…
The final straw was the extremely sharp reaction from Zimbardo’s fiancée, Christina Maslach. He had asked her to participate — by interviewing all the participants of the experiment. She arrived at the «prison» just in time to witness how the «prisoners», who hadn’t really done much to offend the «guards», were being escorted to the toilet one by one with paper bags over their heads.
When Zimbardo later asked her how things were, she honestly stated that everything she had seen seemed simply monstrous to her. After that, Zimbardo ended the experiment (and soon after, he married Christina Maslach, and they lived together happily for many years). By the end of the sixth day, all the participants were returned their clothes, a final meeting was held, and they were allowed to go home.
AND WHAT WAS IT?
Despite the unplanned termination of the experiment, Zimbardo decided that certain conclusions could already be drawn. He believed it was proven that even a brief stay in prison has disastrous effects, that those who guard prisoners and hold power over them inevitably begin to display sadistic tendencies, and that those who are incarcerated will suffer from depression, mental disorders, and meaningless rebellions.
He later summarized his findings in a book called The Lucifer Effect. In it, he wrote that the cause of cruelty is the power of the system, that anonymity encourages the belief that one will not have to answer for their actions and that deindividuation and the dehumanization of prisoners play a significant role in creating an atmosphere of fear. Prisoners begin to be seen not as individuals but as faceless members of a criminal group. He argued that guards are driven to cruelty by the fear of being rejected by their group and sometimes by simple boredom.
Zimbardo attempted to use his arguments in court, defending one of the guards from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, where the abuse of prisoners was a common occurrence. In court, Zimbardo stated that «you can’t be the only sweet cucumber in the pickle jar», meaning that in an aggressive environment, any guard would begin to behave like everyone else. However, the court did not heed his arguments, and the sergeant he was defending, Ivan Frederick, was sentenced to eight years in prison.
HARSH CRITICISM
However, the failure in court was only a specific instance of the broader criticism of the experiment itself. It was immediately pointed out that the sample of participants was not representative. With only nine primary participants and one reserve, the number was too small to apply standard statistical procedures for obtaining reliable results. The simplified participant selection process was also criticized — strictly speaking, any conclusions from the experiment could only be applied to middle-class white students, and the effects on others would need further study.
However, the more serious criticism was that the organizers of the experiment themselves were pushing the participants toward the results they wanted to achieve. Before the experiment began, Zimbardo himself addressed the guards, saying: «Create a feeling of despair in the prisoners, a sense of fear, a feeling of arbitrariness, and that their lives are completely controlled by us, by the system, by you, by me, and they have no personal space… We will deprive them of their individuality in various ways. All of this will create a sense of powerlessness in them. In this situation, we will have all the power, and they will have none». What other results could be expected if the guards followed these instructions from the leader?
Also playing a significant role was the statement by Zimbardo’s consultant, Carl Prescott, who himself had served 17 years for attempted murder. He claimed that boys from respectable families playing «guards» could not have come up with all these repressive methods on their own — Zimbardo had suggested them based on his own prison experience. Zimbardo tried to deny this possibility but could not provide convincing arguments.
The experiment was also condemned by the famous psychologist Erich Fromm, who pointed out that in a real prison, both guards and prisoners are responsible for their actions, while in the experiment, there was no such accountability — Zimbardo, as the leader, had too much control over the behavior model. Furthermore, the reproducibility of the experiment was problematic — similar research conducted by British psychologists Reicher and Haslam avoided instructing the «guards» to be cruel, and as a result, they were not.
In general, the scientific results of the Stanford Prison Experiment are subject to justified doubts. Trust in its findings has decreased, and it has started to be removed from psychology curricula. However, in popular culture, the experiment is still thriving.
In 2015, a film about the experiment was made, winning awards at several festivals. It is often referenced in literature but not in scientific works, but rather in artistic and popular science contexts. As for Philip Zimbardo and Christina Maslach, the experiment marked the beginning of a happy marriage — for them, that’s not a bad thing. Best wishes to them…
LITERATURE
- F. Zimbardo. The Lucifer Effect. M., ‘Alpina’, 2003. 747 с.
- E. Fromm. Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. M., LLC ‘Publishing House AST-LTD’. 1998. 672 с.
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