The
Stanford prison experiment (
SPE) was a study of the
psychological effects of becoming a
prisoner or
prison guard. The experiment was conducted at
Stanford University from August 1420, 1971, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor
Philip Zimbardo.
[1] It was funded by the
US Office of Naval Research[2] and was of interest to both the
US Navy and
Marine Corps as an investigation into the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners.
Twenty-four male students out of seventy-five were selected to take on randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The participants adapted to their roles well beyond Zimbardo's expectations, as the guards enforced
authoritarian measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to
psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to prevent it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his role as the
superintendent, permitted the abuse to continue. Two of the prisoners quit the experiment early and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. Certain portions of the experiment were filmed and excerpts of footage are publicly available.
