Stanford Prison Experiment Phillip Zimbardo 1971 Stanford University Experiment was stopped after 6 days

Theory He sought to see the effect that prison life would have on normal college aged men He studied how prison would effect both inmates and guards What happens when you put good people in a bad place?

Method Created a simulated prison environment Had 24 participants arrested and placed into this prison environment Some were made to be prisoners Some were guards Prison was the basement of the Psych building The entire experiment was video taped

The Experiment

Results Some prisoners rebelled or fought with the guards Four prisoners reacted by breaking down emotionally as a way to escape the situation Others tried to cope by being good prisoners, doing everything the guards wanted them to do

Results By the end of the study, the prisoners were emotionally “broken”, both as a group and as individuals The guards had won total control of the prison, and they commanded the blind obedience of each prisoner Prisoners felt dehumanized and a loss of identity

Results Deindividuation- Loss of self awareness and sense of personal responsibility This was seen in the behavior of the guards

The End After the 5th day, parents of the subjects came and threatened to call a lawyer Colleagues of Zimbardo said the experiment should be stopped because of ethical issues Participants were happy it stopped

Criticisms Unethical Went too far Caused psychological distress Coerced people to stay in who wanted to leave (Zimbardo claims this is untrue, however some subjects later claimed they were not allowed to leave)