What was the Stanford prison experiment?

It was a study developed by Phillip Zimbardo at Stanford University, where students were organized to pretend to be prisoners and officers of a prison built inside the facilities.

Phillip Zimbardo is a social psychologist, researcher, and professor emeritus at Stanford University and president of the American Psychological Association. He is famous for his studies on "the psychology of evil", from which works such as the book The Lucifer Effect: A Shocking Study on the Nature of Evil and the experiences of the broken windows and the most famous, the Stanford Prison Experiment.

The experiment

In the year 1979, residents of Palo Alto, California came across a newspaper ad soliciting participants for a study, who Those selected would receive a payment of $15 for each day the study lasted (the study was set to last two weeks). Of the 70 volunteers who attended, 24 participants were selected who, through a procedure randomly, they were divided into two groups of equal size (one group would represent the guards and another the inmates). Zimbardo arranged for a section of the basement of the university to be fitted out with cells, and for the city police to lend him a patrol car to make the "arrests".

It was Sunday, August 14, when the guards went to the home of each of the inmates and proceeded to arrest them, some with warrants for theft. Upon arriving at the prison, the officers blindfolded them and led them inside. Once inside, they were ordered to undress and stand with their legs open and arms outstretched. They were given their "prison uniform", a brown robe with embroidered numbers and a leotard. for the head (Zimbardo indicates that this was done because it is not possible to shave the head of the participants). Once dressed, the inmates were forced to remove the blindfolds and look at themselves in a mirror. The officers delivered the rules that they should comply with during their stay in prison.

1. Inmates must remain silent at all times unless commanded to speak by an officer.
2. Inmates may only eat at established times.
3. Inmates must participate in all prison activities.
4. Inmates must keep their cell in impeccable order, this includes making the bed, clean the floor and keeping their personal belongings in order.
5. Inmates must avoid disturbing the prison space.
6. Inmates are prohibited from turning on the light in their cells.
7. Inmates must address other inmates by number, never by name.
8. Inmates must address guards as "Mr. Prison Officer."
9. Inmates are prohibited from expressing their condition as an experiment.
10. Inmates have 5 minutes a day to go to the bathroom.
11. Smoking will only be permitted with the permission of the guards.
12. The mail received will be checked by the guards.
13. Only authorized inmates will be allowed to receive visitors.
14. Inmates must be on their feet when someone enters the compound.
15. Inmates must obey the rules.
16. Inmates must report non-compliance with these rules.
17. Failure to comply with any rule is grounds for punishment.

Throughout the days that the experiment lasted, the guards ordered the inmates to do a roll call that consisted of standing at attention and saying their identification number out loud. If a guard was not satisfied with the action of an inmate, he would order him to perform push-ups or other physical exercises; this activity would be repeated constantly throughout the day. In the same way, the guards carried out arbitrary punishments on a constant basis, among these are the removal of food, blankets to sleep and the most feared, locking the prisoners in an isolation cell that was impromptu.

These actions led the inmates to initiate small actions of rebellion against the guards, including one of the inmates going on a hunger strike to demand his release. Some of the inmates began to show signs that their mental health and well-being were beginning to deteriorate and upon requesting Zimbardo's intervention, he behaved like a true director of prisons, ignoring the claims of the inmates. After just six days, Zimbardo was forced to stop the study, which was slowly spiraling out of control.

The impact of the study

The Stanford prison experiment is recognized as one of the most questionable experiments in psychology. (He is not the only one, I could cite Milgram's obedience study or Watson's study entitled "the little Albert"). Among the criticisms that the experiment has received, and even Zimbardo himself, are the lack of ethics in the development of the study, by endangering the integrity of the participants; and the absence of a clear methodology in its execution, Zimbardo himself has recognized that it is not possible for him to clearly identify which were the variables and manipulations of the study.

Despite the questionable nature of the experiment, the importance of Zimbardo for psychology cannot be denied, especially for the "psychology of evil." In his book "The Lucifer Effect" Zimbardo delves into the mechanisms that lead a person to perform acts of evil, how obedience, power and conformity, it also addresses cases such as the Abu Ghraib prison, in which Iraqi prisoners were tortured by the military North Americans; and of course, he describes in detail the 6 days that the experiment lasted.

References

Zimbardo, P. (2018). The Lucifer effect. Shocking study on the nature of evil. Paidos.