Stanford Prison Experiment

In what is now commonly referred to as the ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’ the researchers wanted to find out more about the psychology of prison life and if people who were given specific roles to play, would do so, according to what they believed that role should be.

The research has been deemed as one of the most controversial in history and its findings have been extremely influential in helping us to understand why people may conform to a role that is expected of them.

Although the details of the research are included below, the following link leads to an excellent and more comprehensive look at the study, which should help you better understand it: http://www.prisonexp.org/

Aim

The researchers wanted to find out how readily their participants would conform to the roles given to them (either prisoner or guard) in a simulated prison environment.

Zimbardo, in particular, was interested in seeing if alleged brutality among prison guards in the US was due to the personality of the guard or the prison environment in which they worked.

Method

• The basement of Stanford University in California was turned into a mocked-up prison
• Adverts were placed asking for participants to take on a role within the prison, which they would be expected to carry out for two weeks
• Would-be applicants were subject to diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate those who had psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse
• 24 male participants were chosen from 75 volunteers and each was paid $15 per day to take part
• Participants were randomly assigned to the role of either prisoner or guard, and after some dropped out the researchers were eventually left with 10 prisoners and 11 guards
• Guards worked in eight-hour shifts and prisoners were assigned in threes to their ‘cells’
• ‘Prisoners’ were ‘arrested’ at their homes at the start of the experiment and each was subjected to being fingerprinted and blindfolded before being driven to the ‘prison’
• Upon arrival the prisoners were stripped, given uniforms and all their personal belongings were taken from them. Each was, thereafter, only referred to by his ID number
• Guards wore identical uniforms and told to do whatever they thought necessary to retain order within the prison
• Zimbardo himself acted as a prison warder and observed the behaviour of the participants

Results

Zimbardo and his colleagues were astonished by what they found. The behaviour of the guards was so brutal that despite wanting to run the experiment for two weeks, the researchers were forced to terminate it after just six days. They found the following:

• All participants settled into their roles very quickly
• Within hours, some guards began to harass the prisoners and appeared to enjoy taunting them
• Once the harassment began, other guards began to join in and their behaviour worsened very quickly
• The prisoners were quick to behave like prisoners – they ‘told tales’ on each other and their behaviour quickly became very submissive
• On day two of the experiment, the prisoners staged a form of revolt but this was quickly extinguished by the guards and many prisoners were put into solitary confinement
• One prisoner had to be released from the experiment after just 36 hours, such was the level of his emotional distress
• Zimbardo realised that his own involvement in the experiment means he may have missed how bad the situation had become but all researchers agreed the experiment must end after six days

Conclusion

The researchers concluded that people will readily and quickly conform to the role that is expected of them, particularly if these are heavily stereotyped, such as a prison guard.

Zimbardo also concluded that it was the situation that someone found themselves in, rather than their personal characteristics, which made them conform to a specific role.

Many of the guards said that they were surprised by their own behaviour and they did not realise that they were capable of behaving in such a way – those acting as prisoners said something similar about their behaviour as well.

Strengths of the study

• Many of the participants were heard discussing ‘prison life’ as though it were real, meaning that their behaviour was genuine
• After the findings of the study were published, the American prison system was changed in that younger offenders were no longer housed with older ones, due to the risk of violence that they faced
• The experiment also ensured that stricter ethical guidelines about research were put into place

Weaknesses of the study

• The sample is biased as it only represented American males and therefore cannot be generalised across a wider population
• Participants may have shown demand characteristics because many claimed afterwards that they had simply been acting
• Ethical issues: it was found that there was a lack of informed consent among some participants. Some underwent extreme psychological distress and were not protected from this by the researchers