Stanford Prison Experiment

 

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971. He was a renowned researcher and psychologist. He conducted this experiment to find out how people will behave in situations where they feel anonymous or in situations where they perceive others as enemies or objects. 

In this experiment, he selected 24 male volunteers. These volunteers were students with no criminal background. Zimbardo randomly assigned these individuals to prison officers and prisoners and locked them in an artificial prison. The officers were given uniforms and batons and prisoners were given prison attire, shaved, and put into cells with chains on one foot.  Within one week, these students were becoming the roles they were assigned. The prisoners revolted and the officers became authoritative by giving completely unnecessary punishments.  The intended experiment of two weeks was cut short to six days when the psychologists and the doctors noticed the harsh impact it was having on the students. From helplessness to complete breakdown, the prisoners were forgetting their real identities (Zimbardo, Jaffe, Banks, & Haney, 1971).

The experiment successfully demonstrated the impact of the situation on an individual’s behaviour. It proved how good people can be made to do evil to other good people. It highlighted the importance of roles, community, authority and situational validity (Zimbardo, Maslach, & Haney, 1999). 

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