By: Maeve Brady

Throughout our lives we may have heard of many notable experiments. With many notable experiments comes ones which were conducted very dangerously and are very controversial. Yet one that is still commonly debated and probably one of the most infamous psychology experiments is the Stanford Prison Experiment. In your life, you may have heard of this twisted experiment. And even if you haven’t, you may eventually. So, for those of you who would like a more in-depth explanation of the Stanford Prison Experiment and its procedures, stick around.

First of all we must understand what the Stanford Prison Experiment was even focused on studying; why it was even conducted. Dr. Phillip Zimbardo, a psychologist and professor at Stanford University which is located in Stanford, California, asked his students to examine what happens when someone is first imprisoned and the psychological effects of that. His students, as part of their independent study, came up with the intriguing idea of this sort of mock prison simulation.

Then, when Zimbardo started to question and have the desire to further investigate social roles and situational power dynamics, especially in prison, he decided to initiate this experiment. Or, in other words, he wanted to better understand and further research how ordinary people who are considered healthy and mentally “normal” can shift mentally in a matter of a couple of days under a prison simulated environment. So, in a newspaper ad they created advertisements for college students who would be willing to partake in a simulated prison experiment.

For the originally intended two week long experiment, they would be paid around fifteen dollars per day. Initially, there were around seventy participants, but after a series of psychological and physical tests, it was narrowed down to twenty-four participants. Contrary to the belief that the guards and the prisoners were chosen based on their height and size differences, the determination of whether you were a prisoner or a guard was completely random to ensure there was no biases-well at least that we know of. 

Once the roles were chosen, the experiment began. In Stanford University’s basement, a simple yet pretty secure ”jail” was constructed. According to the Stanford Prison Experiment’s official  website redesigned by Jeff Breil, Scott Plous, and David Jensenius in 2015, “Our prison was constructed by boarding up each end of a corridor in the basement of Stanford’s Psychology Department building. That corridor was “The Yard” and was the only outside place where prisoners were allowed to walk, eat, or exercise, except to go to the toilet down the hallway (which prisoners did blindfolded so as not to know the way out of the prison).” This demonstrates that the prison was intricately designed yet also had this easily comprehensible layout. And to create prison cells, they took the doors off some laboratory rooms and replaced them with doors made of steel bars and cell numbers where the prisoners would be held. An intercom system was also installed in order to listen in on the prisoner’s conversations as well as make announcements.

To fully understand the proceedings of the Stanford Prison experiment, we must understand the way, and fact, of how humiliation spread throughout this experiment. The experiment was split into three groups: the institution-which was composed of Dr. Zimbardo, who deemed himself as the superintendent, an ex-convict who played the role of the prison consultant because of his past experiences in a prison, as well as other people who helped operate the experiment-the guards, and the prisoners.

At first Dr. Zimbardo asked the Palo Alto Police Department to arrest the prisoners at their homes, in order to instill this sense of embarrassment as all their neighbors watched in shock. Then, when they arrived at the Palo Alto Police Department station, they were blindfolded, put in a cell, and forced to ponder their fate. Once they were transferred to their make-shift jail in the basement of Stanford University, they were then stripped naked and deloused in order to prevent “them from contaminating their jail”. But in reality, this was a method of increasing the humiliation upon the prisoners. The prisoners were then forced to wear a smock and given a number to diminish their pride and take away from their individuality.

It was also important to understand that the guards were really given no training on how to be a guard. They were only given instructions to use any method, besides physical violence, to assert authority over the prisoners and make them comply. The guards then devised a set of rules which involved some effective methods to make the prisoners listen. One of them was counts. These counts were an effective way of not only familiarizing the prisoners with their numbers, but it was also an effective way of establishing that the guards had the authority in that situation and the prisoners could only be another number that was “forced” to comply with what the guards were telling them to do. This also took away from the prisoner’s individuality and established this sense that all they could do was comply with the perceived authority figures. The other method was a large amount of push-ups whenever someone spoke out and/or behaved in a “bad” way.

Although everything went smoothly the first day, a prison rebellion then broke out the morning of the second. The prisoners removed their stocking caps, ripped off their numbers, and barricaded themselves inside the cells by putting their beds against the door. Because of the rebellion, the morning-shift guards were infuriated. When the morning-shift guards arrived at the “jail”, they were upset and believed that the night-shift guards must have been too strict on the prisoners. But, how the guards handled it was shocking to many. At the beginning of the rebellion, the guards insisted that reinforcements be called in. The three guards who were on stand-by call at home came in and the night-shift guards voluntarily remained on duty to help support the morning shift. The guards then decided to use force to dispatch the rebellion caused by the prisoners. The guards then got a fire extinguisher and shot a stream of skin-chilling carbon dioxide at them. They  used this mechanism to stun the prisoners and force them away from the doors. Once the guards managed to dispatch the rebellion, a new problem arose.

Although the guards were able to calm the rebellion down, the fact that it took nine guards using clubs to do so, obviously made the guards nervous. Nine guards couldn’t be on duty all the time, so instead of using physical methods, the guards decided to use more physiological methods to control the prisoners and force them in line. So, the guards devised something known as the “privilege cell”. The three prisoners least involved in the rebellion were given special privileges, and they were given their uniforms and bed backs, as well as being able to brush their teeth. The prisoners who were least involved in the rebellion also got to eat a special meal in the presence of the prisoners who temporarily lost their eating privileges.

Throughout the experiment, several prisoners had to leave due to the torture of the experiment; for example, Prisoner #8612 had a mental breakdown and went into this fit of rage, and others were tortured to their breaking points.

There were also many other significant events that occurred along the way. For example, a new prisoner was added to play with the already established social groups, as well as a family visiting hour, and a priest visiting the “jail”. Yet throughout these interactions, no one spoke out, and instead of questioning the morals of the experiment, many only gave advice on how to make their “case” less severe and tried to work within the system to help them out.

After six days of this experiment, it had to be shut down. This shutdown occurred after Dr. Zimbardo snapped back into reality, and realized how cruel it was after someone had told him that what he was doing was too cruel. Although this experiment ended short, the conclusion has been relevant for years and years. The Stanford Prison Experiment concluded that individuals readily conform to social roles, especially when those roles are strongly stereotyped and involve power dynamics. And, contrary to Dr. Zimbardo’s statement claiming that this experiment proved that everyone has a little bit of evil and violence in them just awaiting to be released under pressure packed situations, many psychologists believe that it demonstrates that we act how we think we are supposed to act, and act to our preconceived notions. Also, due to the fact that the guards were given an initiative to assert authority over the prisoners, this may have influenced the way the guards acted too.

Thank you for following me along as I explained the Stanford Prison Experiment. Although I covered a ton of different aspects of it, there is still so much to discuss. I hope you have learned a lot about the Stanford Prison Experiment and its proceedings.

For more information, please go to:

• https://www.prisonexp.org/the-story