Stanford prison experiment

The Stanford prison experiment (SPE) was a psychological experiment conducted in the summer of 1971. It was a two-week simulation of a prison environment that examined the effects of situational variables on participants' reactions and behaviors. Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo led the research team who administered the study. Participants were recruited from the local community with an ad in the newspapers offering $15 per day to male students who wanted to participate in a "psychological study of prison life." Volunteers were chosen after assessments of psychological stability and then randomly assigned to being prisoners or prison guards. Critics have questioned the validity of these methods. Those volunteers selected to be "guards" were given uniforms specifically to de-individuate them, and they were instructed to prevent prisoners from escaping. The experiment officially started when "prisoners" were arrested by real Palo Alto police. Over the following five days, psychological abuse of the prisoners by the "guards" became increasingly brutal. After psychologist Christina Maslach visited to evaluate the conditions, she was upset to see how study participants were behaving and she confronted Zimbardo. He ended the experiment on the sixth day. SPE has been referenced and critiqued as one of the most unethical psychology experiments in history. The harm inflicted on the participants prompted universities worldwide to improve their ethics requirements for human subjects of experiments to prevent them from being similarly harmed. Other researchers have found it difficult to reproduce the study, especially given those constraints. Critics have described the study as unscientific and fraudulent. The official website of the SPE describes the experiment goal as follows: We wanted to see what the psychological effects were of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. To do this, we decided to set up a simulated prison and then carefully note the effects of this institution on the behavior of all those within its walls.