The Stanford Prison Experiment
I have
posted this before but it seems more relevant now with the pictures of the torture of the Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
What suspects had done was to answer a local newspaper ad calling for volunteers in a study of the psychological effects of prison life. 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 a prison and then carefully note the effects of this institution on the behavior of all those within its walls.
Our study of prison life began, then, with an average group of healthy, intelligent, middle-class males. These boys were arbitrarily divided into two groups by a flip of the coin. Half were randomly assigned to be guards, the other to be prisoners. It is important to remember that at the beginning of our experiment there were no differences between boys assigned to be a prisoner and boys assigned to be a guard.
Its a fascinating read and scary how quickly everyone falls into their "role". What is really scary is even the research psychologist got too deep into the role. I am not sure why he was the "prison" superintendent. Shouldn't he have been removed from any role at all other than observer?
I ended the study prematurely for two reasons. First, we had learned through videotapes that the guards were escalating their abuse of prisoners in the middle of the night when they thought no researchers were watching and the experiment was "off." Their boredom had driven them to ever more pornographic and degrading abuse of the prisoners.
