The Stanford Prison Experiment: How Situational Power Erodes Identity

Philip Zimbardo is a psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University.

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Zimbardo’s prison experiment, that his book The Lucifer Effect is about, was done to see what good people would do when put into a bad situation. Each person that was recruited for the prison experiment was carefully tested to assure that they were both physically and mentally healthy. Out of those who volunteered for the study those who would act as prison guards or prisoners were picked at random. The experiment started with the cooperation of the local police who surprised the prisoners by arresting them at their homes and dormitories.

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At the prison, which was held in the basement of the psychology center, prisoners were given tasks and placed in situations that would put them into the role they would play. The prisoners went through a series of rituals that would reinforce their new status. They were put into tiny cells and were cut off from their normal surroundings for 24 hours a day. They were required to do counts which consisted of prisoners confirming their presence by stating their prison number (which replaced their name at the beginning of the experiment). Counts were often used as an excuse to hassle the prisoners any way the guards could.

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The guards, on the other hand, only worked an eight hour shift and returned to their normal lives outside of the prison. The guards became absorbed into their roles. Some would remain passive but most would become aggressive, intimidating and mean. Guards would often sleep deprive the prisoners in conjunction with abusing and sexually humiliating them. What ended up happening surprised and frightened everyone including Zimbardo.

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The illusion of a prison became the reality. Zimbardo started to act as more of a prison Warden then experimenter. The role the prisoner and guards were playing and their personal identities merged. Normal nice boys became brutal guards and healthy prisoners became ill; once normal active and outspoken individuals became passive prisoners. Both guards and prisoners started to become their role never questioning the experiment or the unethical actions they were pursuing. Prisoners convinced themselves that the basement was no longer an experiment but reality. Prisoners would complain about conditions but would never say the word “I quit the experiment” because they had lost all perspective.

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The situation was so powerful that many of the prisoners had to be released due to extreme stress reactions. The first prisoner to leave was released after only 36 hours due to a nervous breakdown. Half of all the prisoners, which was five of them, were released early because of sever cognitive and emotional disorders. The two week experiment was called off after six days. This may have never occurred if Zimbardo’s fiancée, a psychologist herself, wouldn’t have talked some sense into Zimbardo after leaving the basement crying subsequent to seeing the inhumane situation being carried out there.

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