Is it true that Stanford's prison experiment was refuted?

In the summer of 2018, many Russian media reported that one of the most famous experiments in the history of psychology turned out to be staged. We checked whether this is really so.

In 2018, the largest Russian-speaking media issued materials that Stanford's prison experiment was exposed to expose that the Stanford's prison experiment conducted back in the early 1970s. Publications with similar headlines and a link to American colleagues appeared, in particular, on sites "Gazeta.ru","RIA Novosti" And "Kommersant". At the same time, the authors of different publications appreciated the importance of new data about the experiment in different ways: some called the original “fake” study, and others “staging”, others only reported the charges of subtititions.

The study, which later became known as the Stanford prison experiment, took place in the summer of 1971. Psychologist Philip Zimbardo, with the help of a newspaper announcement, invited 24 volunteers and divided the young men into two equal groups. In a conditional prison equipped at Stanford University, one group was supposed to become overseers, the other concluded. The warders were given shape, batons and mirror glasses, behind which the eye is not visible. The prisoners, in turn, were publicly converted into robes with sewn numbers, which were now used instead of names. Psychologists planned for two weeks to observe how subjects will behave in accordance with the issued roles. Soon, the warders began to apply physical and psychological violence in relation to prisoners. The situation began to get out of control so fast that on the sixth day the experiment was stopped ahead of schedule.

The results of the Stanford experiment began to write not only in scientific journals, but also in the largest world publications. The organized study by Zimbardo came to the conclusion that the real cause of violence is not a personal predisposition of a person, but his environment. The overseers began to insult and humiliate the prisoners simply because they received such an opportunity, although no one demanded that right from them. Subsequently, Zimbardo from these positions defended one of the guards of the American prison Abu Graib in Iraq, where the cases of torture and bullying were recorded.

Although the Zimbardo experiment was called into question earlier, 2018 became critical for the authority of the researcher. French sociologist and documentary director Tibo Le Tessie, and after him American journalist Ben Bloom Reportedthat in the archives of Stanford University, documents that refute the correctness of the study have been preserved. The main discovery was information that the overseers did not independently use violence against prisoners - before the experiment, they were instructed for them that the second group of participants should have helplessness and fear (although there was no reason for the use of violence).

At the end of 2018, the resumed discussion interested the American popularizer of science Michael Stevens. In your documentary film From the YouTube Originals series, he talked with Bloom, who participated in the experiment as a warden Dave Esherman, psychologist Jider Barters and Zimbardo himself. Esherman confirmed that they hid from the warders that they were among the experimental ones: “We were assured that our work was to get the results from prisoners, because it was they who interested the researchers. We knew that the researchers were sitting behind the wall and taking us away, we could even hear their conversations. ” “If they [the initiators of the experiment] want to show that the prison is bad, then I decided to be the most terrible overseer,” Eshelman added.

One of the main claims against the Stanford experiment was that in the announcement of the set of participants it was directly said that researchers conduct a “psychological study of prison life”. The study conducted in 2007 showedThat more aggressive, authoritarian and less prone to empathy people tend to respond to such invitations. Stevens and Barters decided to conduct a new experiment, the design of which will be leveled by Zimbardo research. The announcement by which the participants were recruited was written neutral, and before the start of the experiment they were asked to undergo psychological testing, as a result of which only the most “good” people were selected. The prison component was also excluded. The participants in the experiment were planted in an absolutely dark room and offered to assemble a puzzle, while reporting that the same process was taking place in the next room with another group of people, although in fact the second room did not exist. Participants were allowed to interfere with their "rivals", including siren in their room, while allowing you to adjust the volume level. The role of these "rivals" who had similar opportunities was performed by Stevens and Barters. During the experiment, they did not notice the manifestations of sadistic behavior by the subjects.

Stevens decided to discuss the results he received with the author of the Stanford prison experiment. The assumption that the study of 1971 does not indicate a tendency to use violence, but about the strength of a similar requirement or even a hint from the one who has power did not impress Zimbardo. He insisted that the participants in the original study were not in any way configured to demonstrate the behavior that he and his colleagues observed. The study conducted by Stevens and Barters called Zimbardo “a demonstration that in certain cases the personal properties of a person can dominate the situation and environment,” but did not abandon his own conclusions.

The discussion about Stanford prison experiment has been going on for half a century. There is no doubt that such a study was really - many of its participants are still alive, who do not make sense to lie about the events of 1971. The subject of the dispute, as is often the case in science, was the methodology of the experiment and the validity of far -reaching conclusions that Zimbardo presented to the public. The text of Bloom and subsequent publications in the Russian and foreign media in 2018 simply introduced the mass audience to those doubts that have been expressed in the scientific environment for a Stanford experiment for a long time.

Half truth

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. https://nplus1.ru/blog/2018/06/18/stanford-unCovered
2. https://youtu.be/knd_bbde8rq
3. https://youtu.be/2mmise09arhw
4. https://www.prisonexp.org/