The Stanford Prison Experiment PDF - Assessing Social Science Research

Harry Perlstadt Assessing Social Science Research Ethics and Integrity Case Studies and Essays Harry Perlstadt (emeritus) Department of Sociology Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA ISSN 1566-7847 Clinical Sociology: Research and Practice ISBN 978-3-031-34537-1 ISBN 978-3-031-34538-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34538-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, speciﬁcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microﬁlms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Chapter 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. — attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky, The House of the Dead 8.1 Introduction Philip Zimbardo is best known for his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). Early in his career, he conducted experiments in the psychology of deindividualization, in which a person in a group or crowd no longer acts as a responsible individual but is swept along and participates in antisocial actions. After moving to Stanford University, he began to focus on institutional power over the individual in group settings, such as long-term care facilities for the elderly and prisons. His research proposal for a simulated prison was approved by the Stanford University Human Subjects Research Review Committee in July 1971. He built a mock prison in the basement of the University’s psychology building and recruited college-aged male subjects to play prisoners and guards. The study began on Sunday, August 8th, and was to run for 2 weeks but ended on Friday morning August 13th. In less than a week, several of the mock guards hazed and brutalized the mock prisoners, some of whom found ways of coping, while others exhibited symptoms of mental breakdown. Incidentally, on Saturday, August 21st, three prisoners were killed trying to escape from San Quentin State Prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. This was followed 3 weeks later by a prison riot at Attica Prison in upstate New York (Sawyer, 2021). Zimbardo immediately became an expert on prison riots and prisoner abuse. He testiﬁed before a US House Judiciary subcommittee in October 1971. His special knowledge continued to be recognized decades later. In 2004, he served as an expert defense witness in the court martial of a guard at Abu Ghraib, the US military prison in Iraq. In 2007, Zimbardo (2008: vi, vii, xi) published The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, a detailed account of the SPE. He wanted to challenge the traditional focus on individual personality and characteristics as the major explanation for people committing evil deeds, and instead emphasize the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 183 H. Perlstadt, Assessing Social Science Research Ethics and Integrity, Clinical Sociology: Research and Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34538-8_8 184 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation organizational and group situations that enable them to do so. As an individuated person himself, Zimbardo readily accepted responsibility for his personal ethical and administrative mistakes during the SPE. 8.2 Preliminary Experiments Zimbardo conducted a set of rather complex experiments that enabled him to conceive, design and carryout the SPE. As noted above, he was interested in the psychology of deindividuation, ﬁrst proposed by Festinger et al. (1952); according to Zimbardo (1970: 249–250), deindividuation occurs when members are submerged in a group and not given special attention by others. They experience a reduction of their inner constraints and are more likely to express hostility toward parents or people in authority who they may have felt shaped those constraints. Deindividuation happens when a person becomes part of a larger group and takes on the beliefs and attitudes of the group. The person is caught up in the crowd or mob and may do things they ordinarily would not do. Zimbardo’s three deindividuation studies were elaborated in his undergraduate senior seminar at New York University, his research at Stanford on hypnosis and his Social Psychology in Action class. 8.2.1 The NYU Deindividualization Experiment During the 1966–1967 school year, Zimbardo and students in his undergraduate senior seminar at New York University’s campus in the Bronx conducted what would become Zimbardo’s ﬁrst complex experiment on deindividualization, ano- nymity and aggression (Zimbardo, 1969:265–269; 2008:299–300). Like the Milgram experiments (see Chap. 6), it involved administering electric shocks. Speciﬁcally, female subjects from an introductory psychology class at New York University’s campus in the Bronx were to deliver electric shocks to a female confederate victim. Eight subjects were randomly assigned to the deindividualized group (I) or individualized group (D). Each was given a very large lab coat (size 44) and an open-faced hoodie to wear over her head. Group (I) was given large name tags to wear while group (D) could not readily identify individuals in their group. In order to void experimenter bias, all instructions were given via tape recordings. The subjects in the individualized group were always addressed by the names on their name tags, while the deindividualized group subjects were addressed en masse. The students in each group were told that two of them would administer the shock while the other two would merely observe. If the two were pressing the key at the same time, the intensity of the shock would not be increased. An obedient subject would be free to administer a shock without doubling the intensity of the shock. Each subject was given a sample typical shock the victim would receive. 8.2 Preliminary Experiments 185 In addition to deindividualizing the subjects, Zimbardo portrayed one victim as nice and the other as obnoxious. The ﬁrst was described on the instructions tape as a sweet girl who wanted to work with developmentally disabled children and earn some money for her ﬁancé who was in medical school. The other was described as a transfer student who was making money by modeling to pay for trips to Ivy League schools for dates because she couldn’t stand the Jewish students at the NYU Bronx campus. The subjects were placed in separate cubicles facing a one-way mirror. Lights were turned off for the (D) group but only dimmed for the (I) group. The victim- subject could be seen through the one-way mirror talking with the experimenter who appeared to be giving her a test. When the victim gave an incorrect answer, a signal light came on and the subjects were to immediately press the shock key. Each time the victim was supposedly shocked, she reacted as if she had extreme pain. After the tenth trial, she reacted so strongly that her hand came out of the electrode strap, but the experimenter quickly strapped her back in. The testing continued for another ten trials. The measures of aggression were whether a shock was administered and for what duration. The subjects could administer shocks for up to 2.50 s. The mean duration for the deindividualized group was 0.90 s, twice as long as the 0.47 mean for the individualized group; this difference was signiﬁcant. Zimbardo (1970:270) found that over the trials, the individualized group shocked the purportedly nice victim less and less, but the purportedly obnoxious victim more and more, but the deindividualized group increasingly shocked both victims. He noted that his ﬁndings agreed with Milgram’s remotest proximity (no feedback) condition between the teacher/aggressor and learner/victim (see Chap. 6). Remoteness reduced inhibitions about the victim, as well as not being embarrassed in front of other group members. In his subsequent Stanford experiment, Zimbardo would individualize the pris- oners and deindividualized the guards. The prisoners wore a smock-like dress with a prisoner number on the front and back to individualize them. They also wore a woman’s nylon stocking to cover their hair (a substitute for head shaving), and rubber clogs. A heavy chain was bolted onto their right ankle, which could be attached to the ankle of another prisoner, forming a chain gang. The deindividualized guards wore uniforms from a local army surplus store. They wore reﬂective sun- glasses and had no name tags. This may have contributed to increasingly aggressive interactions between the two groups. 8.2.2 Research on Liberating Behavior Through Hypnosis In 1971, Zimbardo moved from NYU to Stanford, where he held positions as both a tenured professor and fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences. During this time, he was continuing to develop his ideas about individu- ation and deindividuation. He held that an individuated person’s actions were reasonable and orderly, while a deindividualized person’s actions were impulsive 186 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation and chaotic (1970). Most people’s lives are ordered by a daily schedule or clock time—when to wake up and go to bed, when to eat meals, when to go to or return home from school or work. It occurred to him that an individual’s time perspective could be altered by hypnosis, when subjects are instructed in such a way that they feel like time is passing very slowly, that is, expanding the present (Zimbardo et al., 1971:307; 1972:282). Zimbardo received a grant from the Ofﬁce of Naval Research (ONR) to conduct an experiment on hypnosis and mind control. He recruited 30 Stanford undergrad- uates from an introductory psychology course who were high scorers on a hypnotic susceptibility scale. The 15 males and females were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Twelve subjects were trained by a hypnotist, starting in small groups of eight and ﬁnally in groups of two. In addition, each subject was exposed to one of the three researchers acting as hypnotists. The training included giving the subjects suggestions to allow the present to expand and the past and future to become distanced and insigniﬁcant. The other subjects were assigned to one of three groups. Two of the three groups received the same expanded present, time distortion instructions. Six were hypnotic simulators who were told to imagine how hypnotized subjects would respond, and to act as if they were hypnotized throughout the study. Another six subjects were in the present expanded control group, which received the time distortion instructions, but without any mention of hypnosis. The last six subjects were in the normal time control group. They were asked to think of their own conception of time and describe it as a metaphor, e.g., time is money (Zimbardo et al., 1971:305). Subjects were tested in pairs within the same condition, although on most tasks they were isolated in separate cubicles. The hypnotic subjects were given a 5-min relaxation induction at the start of the experimental sessions, which were designed to increase suggestibility and suspend critical faculties. The simulators were given the same period of time to prepare themselves to be good hypnotic simulators. One task was to expose the subjects to an ambiguous situation that could be considered humorous or repulsive. All subjects heard an outtake of a radio commercial for the 1953 movie The Caddy starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. It was ultimately not broadcast because it contained bloopers, with the comedians becoming more obscene and vulgar, and the recording engineers could be heard laughing in the background. Two judges observed the overt reactions of the subjects through a one-way mirror, after which the subjects reported their reactions on a questionnaire. The next task required the subjects to make something in 5 min out of a large, two-pound mound of clay. The subjects left their cubicles, entered the room with the clay on the ﬂoor and worked with it separately or together. After 5 min, the experimenter told the subjects to ﬁnish up and return to their cubical to complete a questionnaire on this task. A major ﬁnding was that the hypnotized subjects were most likely to have altered their temporal perspective and boundaries between present and future than the other subjects. They laughed aloud more and were more preoccupied with physically messing around with the clay, rather than making something with it. No differences 8.2 Preliminary Experiments 187 were found between female and male subjects. Another ﬁnding was that the hypnotic subjects were more likely to display social emotional contagion. When one hypno- tized subject began laughing the others quickly joined in the laughter. One hypno- tized subject who could not ﬁnd a name in a phone book became angry and began to tear pages out. When the other two subjects in his group were given phone books, they also started ripping out pages. The experimenters had to return the subjects to a state of deep relaxation (Zimbardo et al., 1971:318–320). One takeaway from the hypnosis experiments was that a person’s time sense could be manipulated from clock time to subjective time. The hypnotized subjects were uninhibited in that they were not task oriented. They were wasting time, laughing and messing around; they were not on the clock. Zimbardo (1970:161–162) would build on his ﬁndings from these experiments, applying them to his prison experiment. He realized that if the mock prisoners were deprived of sleep as a group, their daily time sense could be altered and they, like the hypnotized students, could become uninhibited, deindividuated and exhibit inappro- priate behavior. 8.2.3 The Stanford Student Project Like Milgram’s experiments, Zimbardo’s most well-known experiment grew out of a student project. In the spring of 1971, he asked students in his Social Psychology in Action class to choose from among a set of projects that would investigate the changes an individual undergoes in the process of adapting to a new environment and role. Options included the elderly entering homes for the aged, people joining cults and new convicts being jailed or imprisoned. Several students ran a mock prison in their dormitory over a weekend. While Zimbardo was aware this had taken place, he did not know what had actually happened until the students gave their in-class report in May. The students expressed intense feelings of anger, frustration, shame and confusion about their behavior during the project. Zimbardo held a debrieﬁng with all of them. He realized that only a controlled experiment, with random assignment of the roles of guards and prisoners, could separate the dispo- sitional factors of behavior, which are based primarily on participants’ attitudes and personalities, from the situational factors of behavior, which emerge from the environment, institutional rules and role expectations (Zimbardo, 2008:32, 494–495). Zimbardo (2008:26, 493–494) was also interested in the antiwar confrontations between students and police units and the National Guard that broke out in May 1970, following the invasion of Cambodia. These confrontations had spread across the country, from Kent State, where four students were killed, to Stanford, where the administration building was effectively closed down and shots were ﬁred at the home of the commander of the Stanford University Reserve Ofﬁcers Training Corps (ROTC), a program to train commissioned ofﬁcers for the US Armed Forces. 188 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation In the spring of 1971, Zimbardo began conversations with the new chief of police of the City of Palo Alto about depolarizing the situation by holding reciprocal visits and tours between police ofﬁcers and college students. The chief of police became interested in how men and women became socialized to the role of police ofﬁcers, and how a rookie became a good cop. Zimbardo told the police chief that he could set up an experiment in which rookie cops and college students would be both mock guards and prisoners. As noted above, Zimbardo had a contract with the ONR which funded a number of studies at Stanford: hypnosis and mind control (Maslach et al., 1972; Zimbardo et al., 1971; Zimbardo et al., 1973); false confessions (Maslach, 1971) and individ- uation and interpersonal aggression (Zimbardo, 1970; Maslach, 1974). The US Navy and Marine Corps were concerned about conﬂicts between guards and prisoners in naval prisons. Zimbardo wanted to demonstrate that the conditions of the prisons were not a result of the type of individuals working and incarcerated in them, but rather emerged from the prison environment, rules and role expectations. If success- ful, he hoped to help the Navy develop training that would eliminate the deplorable conditions in the prisons (Haney et al., 1973). The ONR agreed to a no-cost extension to pay for the SPE (Zimbardo, 2008). 8.3 From Application Through Prisoner Rebellion On Sunday, July 31, Zimbardo (1971a) completed his application to the Stanford University Human Subjects Research Review Committee for approval of the study “Role Playing in a Simulated Prison.” The review committee quickly approved the application and the experiment began exactly 2 weeks later, on Sunday, August 14, 1971. Zimbardo noted that neither the researchers nor the committee knew in advance exactly what would happen or when. It was an exploratory study to document as completely as possible the emergence of a prison environment with respect to roles and behavior. Rather than developing research hypotheses, his application had identiﬁed a few basic parameters for the study and then proposed to observe and document how they evolved. Ideally, Zimbardo hoped the study would yield insights into what occurs in real prisons. Notably, 3 years later, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) published regulations for the use of Human Subjects that required the formation of IRBs. Zimbardo’s application speciﬁed that he would recruit participants through news- paper advertisements for volunteers to participate in a psychology study of impris- onment. All volunteers would be given an information sheet, which was attached to the application. On the application, Zimbardo wrote: There may be some potential emotional stress created by this temporary loss of freedom among the prisoners and by the need for surveillance and control among the guards. We will maintain careful observation of both groups, with professional staff living in [rooms] adjacent to the experimental prison cells. Subjects will be notiﬁed of the potential 8.3 From Application Through Prisoner Rebellion 189 stressfulness of the experience and during a preliminary interview will be encouraged not to participate if they are at all anxious (Zimbardo, 1971a:1). In addition, the project would require physical activity, including exercise and cleaning rooms and halls. It would also require number counts. On his Stanford Research Review application, Zimbardo answered “No” to the questions, “Is deception to be used at any point?” and “Does deception affect the informed consent?” The application asked if the participants would be submitted to humiliation, harassment, irritation or public or private embarrassment. Zimbardo answered “Yes”: Prison subjects’ privacy will be minimized. Prison subjects will have to wear prison uniforms. Prison subjects will have to follow orders and rules. Prison subjects will be discouraged from quitting. These negative effects are among the major anticipated side effects of being in a prison and form an essential possible outcome of this study (Zimbardo, 1971a, 2). Zimbardo also indicated that a background questionnaire and personality inven- tory would probably be used in the selection of participants to exclude extreme responders, since he wanted the guards and prisoners to be as homogeneous and normal as possible. He anticipated that participants might be retested at the end of the study to note any transient changes in their self-reports. With respect to conﬁdenti- ality, Zimbardo promised that all information would be coded, with a master list available only to the PIs. The participants were given a written information sheet about the study (Zimbardo, 1971b). They were to be paid $15 a day and would be randomly assigned to play the roles of either prisoners or guards for the duration of the study. The length of the study would vary from about 5 days to 2 weeks, depending on several factors, such as the prisoner’s sentence or the work effectiveness of the guards. The prisoners would be provided food and accommodations, which met minimal standard nutrition, health and sanitation requirements. Medical and psychiatric facilities would be accessible should any of the participants desire or require such services. Participants also agreed to have their behavior observed, to be interviewed and perhaps to take psychological tests. Films of parts of the study would be taken and participants would agree to allow them to be shown, assuming their content had scientiﬁc value. The informed consent form clearly stated that participation in the research project would involve a loss of privacy. Zimbardo promised that when the experiment ended, he would debrief each participant individually, as well as the group as a whole. Finally, the participants were told that the study would explore the development of norms that govern behavior in a novel situation, and the differential perceptions of being in a prison from people who are initially comparable, but then arbitrarily assigned to play different roles. Unstated in the informed consent form were underlying research questions about how powerfully the labels of prisoner and guard might be in inﬂuencing behavior, and how long it might take for the simulating 190 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation prisoners and guards to behave in a manner similar to prisoners and guards in real- life prisons. Zimbardo had indicated that the prisoners would be discouraged from voluntarily leaving the study. Notably absent was any explicit wording on the information sheet informing participants they were free to withdraw from the study at any time without penalty or loss of the promised or pro-rated compensation to which they were entitled. Zimbardo’s justiﬁcation was presumably that, like real prisoners, those in the SPE ought not to have been given an easy way out. The participants were to enter a contractual agreement, promising to participate for the full duration of the study. No prisoner could leave once jailed, except through established procedures. 8.3.1 Constructing the Mock Prison With the Research Review Committee’s approval, Zimbardo moved quickly. He constructed a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford Psychology Building with three cells; a small closet repurposed as a solitary conﬁnement space for disobedient prisoners; and a hallway repurposed as the prison yard where meals were served, meetings were held and visitors could meet prisoners. He set up a hidden observation point and videotaping facilities and bugged the prisoner’s cells. The cells were close enough to each other that the prisoners could communicate with each other by shouting. Zimbardo ordered food for the prisoners from the student union. Addi- tionally, he contacted the Stanford University’s health, legal, ﬁre and police depart- ments to notify them about the experiment. Zimbardo’s (1970) research on deindividualization suggested, as noted above, that sleep deprivation and unusual time schedules could lower the threshold of behavioral constraint. He proceeded to set up three 8-h shifts for the guards. The day shift ran from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; the evening shift, from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.; and the morning shift, from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. (Zimbardo, 2008:56). These shift names and hours differed by 3 h from many standard 8-h work shifts (7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., 3: 00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., and 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., though not 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p. m.) The prisoners were strategically sleep deprived. They were awakened around 2: 30 a.m. by the incoming morning shift and ordered to stand outside their cells to be counted. They had less than 4 h of sleep until the 6 a.m. wakeup call and count. Potential subjects were asked to complete a questionnaire and were then interviewed in depth by two psychology graduate student researchers. In the end, the 24 applicants selected were judged to be the most physically and mentally stable, most mature and least involved in antisocial behaviors (Haney et al., 1973). Ranging in age from 18 to 24, the ﬁnalists included young men who ranged from recent high school graduates to those with bachelor’s and master’s degrees. The participants did not know each other, save for two brothers who became guards but were assigned to different shifts. As planned, the 24 ﬁnalists were randomly assigned to be either prisoners or guards. Zimbardo noted that none of the volunteers wanted to be a 8.3 From Application Through Prisoner Rebellion 191 guard—all preferred to take the prisoner’s role. The nine initial prisoners were then randomly assigned to one of three cells. Zimbardo based his experimental set-up in part on what he had learned about prisons from Carlo Prescott, who had recently been released from San Quentin State Prison. One of the students in the spring social psychology class had invited Prescott to talk to the class about his experiences (Zimbardo et al., 2000). Prescott described prisoners having bags placed over their heads, inmates being bound together with chains and buckets being used in place of toilets in cells (Prescott, 2005). Zimbardo subsequently asked Prescott to coteach a new summer school course in 1971 on the psychology of imprisonment. Prescott invited other men and women who had been imprisoned, as well as prison guards and lawyers, to talk to the summer school class. With this special course and Prescott’s mentoring, Zimbardo was able to bring a situational savvy to his experiment (2008, 68). 8.3.2 Creating a Total Institution Sociologist Erving Goffman (1961) wrote that total institutions control and regiment the daily activities of members, such as eating, sleeping, working and recreation, which are carried out in the immediate presence of many others. Privacy is at a minimum. Everyone is treated alike and expected to follow a set of explicit formal house rules enforced by the staff. Examples of total institutions in Goffman’s research included prisons, concentration and prisoner of war (POW) camps, psychi- atric hospitals, boarding schools, military barracks and monasteries. Prisoner of War (POWs) are soldiers who are captured by their enemy during a war. The prisoners are then transported to a prisoner of war (POW) camp. In these camps, prisoners are forced to work, and attempts are made to induce them to reject their political or social beliefs and accept those of their captors. Camps put rebellious prisoners in solitary conﬁnement. Zimbardo had the formidable task of creating a total institution de novo. In some ways, the start-up of the Stanford County Jail resembled a prisoner of war camp where captured soldiers and military police were brought together for the ﬁrst time, as compared to an ongoing civilian prison with its guards and inmate community into which new prisoners and guards must adjust (Zimbardo, 2008:46). On Saturday, August 13, Zimbardo held an orientation meeting with the guards where he discussed the purpose of the experiment, gave them their assignments and suggested means of keeping the prisoners under control without using physical punishment. Zimbardo (2008:54–55) explained that he wanted to understand the psychological barriers that prisons create between people. The guards were told that the prisoners knew there were limits on what could happen to them in the experi- mental setting, unlike in real prisons, where prisoners can be beaten. The guards could not physically abuse the prisoners in any way but could create some degree of fear. The guards, however, could act arbitrarily and would be totally in control. The prisoners were to always be called by the prison number on their uniforms. Once during each of the three shifts, the guards could line up the prisoners for a “count,” 192 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation using their prison ID number to establish that all prisoners were present and to test them on their knowledge of prison rules (Haney et al., 1973). The experiment’s research questions were as follows: what will the prisoners do to try to gain power in the prison, even total power, and will they work against the guards to regain some of their freedom? Three guards would be assigned to each of three shifts based on their preferences. Zimbardo said that the night shift might be the easiest because the prisoners would be sleeping about half the time. The guards would have relatively little to do but would have to stay awake in case the prisoners attempted to plan something. This subtly suggested that that the prisoners might revolt. The guards then met with “Warden” David Jaffe, the undergraduate student who had led the prison project in the social psychology class that spring. As part of their project, the class had developed a set of rules and procedures for the guards. Jaffe and the guards settled on a list of 17 rules that the prisoners in the Stanford County Jail would follow. These rules covered ﬁve major characteristics of a total institution: regulation of daily activities, respect for property, privileges controlled by the guards and staff, respect for authority and taboo or forbidden words. The rules governing daily activities at the Stanford County Jail included that all prisoners must remain silent during rest periods, after lights out, during meals and when they were outside their cells in the prison “yard” (a long, narrow basement corridor). They must participate in all prison activities and keep their cells clean at all times, with beds made, personal effects neat and orderly and ﬂoors spotless. The prisoners were not to move, tamper with, deface or damage walls, ceilings, doors or other prison property and were never to operate ceiling lights. In addition, prisoners had to address each other by number, the guards as “Mr. Correctional Ofﬁcer,” and the warden as “Mr. Chief Correctional Ofﬁcer.” They were to stand whenever the warden, the prison superintendent (Zimbardo) or any visitor arrived and wait for orders to be seated or to resume activities (Zimbardo, 2008:44–45). Privileges controlled by the guards, warden and superintendent included lavatory visitations, which were limited to 5 min, and smoking after meals or at the discretion of the guards. As in real-world jails and prisoner-of-war camps, mail would be inspected and censored. The guards could listen in on the conversations between a prisoner and his visitors and limit the visit to 5 min. The prisoners were aware that if they said anything negative about the prison they could suffer later (Zimbardo 94–95). Failure to obey any of the above rules could result in punishment. Finally, prisoners must never refer to their condition as an experiment or simulation. They are imprisoned until paroled. 8.3.3 The Prisoners Rebel On Monday morning, Prisoner 5704, who had been denied his after dinner smoke the night before, got Prisoners 819 and 7258 to tear the numbers off their uniforms in protest against the unacceptable living conditions. Readers will recall that prisoners were required to wear a smock-like dress identiﬁed with a prisoner number. The guards stripped the rebellious prisoners naked and would not allow them to redress 8.4 Who’s Who in the SPE 193 until they had replaced their numbers. After that incident, Prisoner 5704, the ringleader of the revolt, convinced his two cellmates (Prisoners 7258 and 3401) to do something more, whereupon 3401, who had supported prisoners considering a hunger strike during breakfast, now suggested they push their beds against the door of Cell 1, cover the door opening with blankets and shut off the lights—a clear violation of Rule #6 against operating the ceiling lights. When the guards could not break into Cell 1, they suddenly rushed into Cell 2 that had, in Zimbardo’s opinion, “the top-of-the-line trouble makers” (Prisoners 819, 8612 and 1037). The guards grabbed the three cots and hauled them out into the Yard (hallway). A struggle ensued, with much pushing, shoving and shouting. Prisoner 819 screamed “No, no, no! This is an experiment. Leave me alone!” His cellmate 8612 added, “A fucking simulation. It’s a fucking simulated experiment. It’s no prison.” In the melee that followed, Prisoner 8612 ended up naked. He thrust his hands between the bars in the door of Cell 2, with his palms upward in a pleading gesture (Zimbardo, 2008:61). One of the guards smacked his club against the bars near 8612’s hands, and a few minutes later, another guard shot bursts of cold ﬁre extinguisher foam into the cell. 8.4 Who’s Who in the SPE The SPE was like a stage production consisting of a cast of volunteer subjects playing prisoners, guards and prison administrators, as well as two from central casting, an ex-convict and prison chaplain playing themselves, and cameo walk-on appearances by prisoner’s parents on visiting night, followed by a department colleague and his wife who showed up after the visitors left. In addition, playing a supporting role was Christina Maslach, who had been Zimbardo’s teaching assistant and collaborator on the hypnosis study. This chapter will discuss these groups and individuals to better analyze and understand their actions and their impacts on the evolution of the SPE simulation, bringing in relevant theoretical perspectives and empirical ﬁndings. 8.4.1 The Prisoners SPE prisoners, readers will recall, were Stanford male undergraduates who volunteered to participate in a study and were randomly assigned to play the role of prisoner or guard. Zimbardo (2008:504) did not present a set of hypotheses in advance of conducting the experiment, but he would later categorize the behavior of several prisoners in terms of Erving Goffman’s (1961:61–64) four types of inmate adaptation to total institutions. They are: 1. Withdrawal where the inmate drastically curtails his involvement and interactions with both staff and fellow inmates, 194 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation 2. Intransigence when the inmate refuses to cooperate with the staff in any way which, in a prison, could including rebelling or rioting, 3. Colonization where the inmate creates a personal niche within the institution and may mess up just prior to their slated discharge to increase the likelihood of remaining incarcerated; and 4. Conversion when the inmate assists staff in dealing with fellow inmates and exhibits a highly disciplined, moralistic approach to issues which are considered in an all or nothing context. Goffman thought that most inmates adapt an opportunistic combination of the four types to maximize their chance to avoid physical and psychological harm. Zimbardo (2008:51, 62, 69, 71, 72) explicitly labeled prisoner 8612 as the rebel/ intransigent, and he provided sufﬁcient information on three other inmates to be able to classify them: Prisoner 819 for withdrawal, 3401 for colonization and 2093 for conversion. 8.4.1.1 Prisoner 819: Withdrawal It was hard to withdraw from the SPE, where the prisoners were subject to headcounts and cell inspections in addition to communal meals and occasional meetings with prison ofﬁcials and visitors. 819 thought the ﬁrst counts on Sunday and Monday were just a joke. When he laughed, he did 20 push-ups without complaining. Similarly, prisoners 819 and 5486 found it funny to be ordered to sing their prison numbers; after laughing they were ordered to jumping jacks as punishment. 819 was commanded to sing a solo tune repeatedly but couldn’t satisfy the guards (Zimbardo, 2008:47–50). On Monday morning, the prisoners were told about toilet privileges, which involved being blindfolded and led outside the prison entrance as a chain gang on a circuitous route to the toilet. They would be given a short time and must remain silent. The guards noticed that 819 smiled and found it funny. A little later 819 quit doing exercises and refused to continue. The other prisoners stopped to show their solidarity, but 819 decided to continue for their sake. 819 was then sent to the solitary conﬁnement space, “the Hole,” with a deﬁant swagger. He was joined by 8612 and both missed breakfast (Zimbardo, 2008:58). Prisoner 819 was back in Cell 2 when the guards rushed in after they couldn’t get into Cell 1, where the prisoners had barricaded themselves. This started a prison rebellion. As the guards dragged the cots into the hallway, 819, readers will recall, screamed “No, no, no! This is an experiment!” adding, “Leave me alone!...You’re not going to take our fucking beds!” (Zimbardo, 2008:61). Over the rest of that day, 819 was reluctant to participate. At the afternoon count, one of the “good” guards, Geoff Landry, had the prisoners sing their numbers up a scale, in the fashion of “do-re- mi.” All the prisoners except 819 sang. He refused to join the other prisoners, shouting out, “Thank you, Mr. Correction Ofﬁcer, for a ﬁne day!” Many hours later, when it was time for the Tuesday 2:30 a.m. count, 819 had 8.4 Who’s Who in the SPE 195 to be dragged out of bed. Much of the prisoners’ experience is nicely summed up in a letter 819 wrote to his friend, in which he stated that he sleeps, shouts his number and get hassled (Zimbardo, 2008:65, 70, 82, 91). Prisoner 819’s parents, brother and sister visited him on Tuesday night. Two of the guards hung around close enough so that 819 was aware that if he said anything negative about the prison he would suffer. After his parents left, he told his brother and sister about “the Hole,” but when he pointed to it, one of the guards said not to talk about it. His sister asked him about the numbers on his smock and what the prisoners do all day. He explained the numbers and told her what they do all day. But when he talked about the problems he had with the guards on the night shift, the nearby guard stopped him again. He managed to say that the guards get them up early in the morning. “Some guards are really good but they all have clubs” (Zimbardo, 2008:94–95). Father McDermott, the actual prison chaplain, showed up on Wednesday and offered to meet with those prisoners who wanted to talk with him as well as some who requested that religious services be held on the weekend. After meeting with seven prisoners, he asked about the one reluctant prisoner who said he was sick and wanted more sleep. Zimbardo had told him that earlier that day, 819 had torn open pillows and scattered feathers all over his cell. He was put in the “Hole” and his two cellmates had to clean up the mess. Zimbardo had one of the guards encourage 819 to talk with the priest in the hopes he might feel better. When they met, Father McDermott asked 819 about his visit with his family the night before. He then wanted to know how 819 was feeling, to which he replied that he had a headache and felt kind of drained and nervous. Then he broke down and started crying. The priest alerted Zimbardo, who asked 819 if he wanted to be released. But 819 wanted to continue and agreed to behave himself (Zimbardo, 2008:101–105). Zimbardo took 819 to the staff R&R room. A while later, one of the guards had the prisoners chanting that 819 was being punished because he messed up the cells. Zimbardo went back to the R&R room and found 819 having an emotional break- down. Zimbardo told him that he was a psychologist and not a prison superintendent and that it was time for 819 to go home. 819 left the experiment because of a severe preexisting medical condition. 8.4.1.2 Prisoner 8612: Intransigence/Rebellion Prisoner 8612, one of the top trouble makers, was so intransigent that he was released from prison within 36 h of starting the experiment. His problems began when he was arrested on Sunday morning by a Palo Alto police ofﬁcer, “Ofﬁcer Bob.” The ofﬁcer somewhat apologetically said that he was taking 8612 downtown for booking on suspicion of burglary. Prisoner 8612 told the ofﬁcer he knew his rights and asked to see the warrant for his arrest. While Ofﬁcer Bob was considering a response, it dawned on 8612 that it was Sunday and that he had been told to wait for the experiment to begin that day. He dropped his interest in the warrant when he 196 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation remembered he had signed up for it, not for the money, but to see how he’d feel being oppressed as a political prisoner (Zimbardo, 2008:36–37). On Monday morning, Guard Vandy claimed that he did not like the way 8612 made his bed. He threw the blankets and sheets on the ﬂoor and ordered 8612 to remake the bed. 8612 lunged at the guard and was sent to the Hole, which already held 819. Both prisoners missed breakfast. Later, 8612 was back in Cell 2 when the guards suddenly broke in frustration because they could not get into Cell 1, where the prisoners had barricaded themselves. The guards pulled the three cots into the yard as 8612 furiously resisted, starting the rebellion. He shouted “It’s a fucking simulated experiment. It’s no prison. And fuck Dr. Zimbardo!” He ended up naked and moaned, “They took our clothes, and they took our beds! This is unbelievable!” (Zimbardo, 2008:58–61). As the guards moved on to Cell 3, 8612 and his cellmate 1037 called out to Cell 3 to barricade themselves. Guard Landry came at them with a ﬁre extinguisher and shot bursts of skin-chilling carbon dioxide into Cell 2, ordering them to shut up and stay away from the door. The morning shift of three guards was attempting to control nine prisoners. Around 6 p.m. on Monday, when the night shift was arriving, 8192 picked the lock on his cell and attempted to escape. He was shoved back into his cell where he again screamed obscenities. He had taken off his stocking cap and was told to put it back on, to which he responded: I can’t put it on my head, it’s too tight. I’ll get a headache. What? I know that’s really weird. That’s why I’m trying to get out of here... they keep saying ‘No, you won’t get a headache,’ but I know I will get a headache. (Zimbardo, 2008:72) After his attempted escape, he was again sent to solitary conﬁnement in the Hole. When he was released from conﬁnement at lights out, he screamed that he was burning up inside. He met with Warden Jaffe who talked with Craig Haney, a graduate research assistant. Haney spoke with 8612 and thought that he might be play acting, given his antiwar activities at the university the year before. 8612 had broken Rule 9, which stated that prisoners must never refer to their condition as an experiment or simulation, which threatened the deception essential to the experiment and the roles of the participants. Without consulting Zimbardo, who was out to dinner, Haney contacted 8612’s girlfriend, who quickly came and took him away. Craig told them they might want to go to Student Health in the morning where staff were available to provide help if needed (Zimbardo, 2008:77–78). Not just Haney, but the whole of the research team suspected he had faked his symptoms (Banuazizi & Movahedi 1975; Zimbardo et al., 1972). It is possible that some of the other prisoners followed suit. Regardless, half the prisoners would be released early (Zimbardo, 2008, 186) because of emotional and cognitive disorders. Zimbardo (2008:496) later noted that 8612’s utterance that the SPE was an experiment or simulation was a key event in the study. Everyone had to impose communal self-censorship, allowing everyone to know it is just an experiment, but acting and speaking as if it were a real prison. 8612 then claimed that in real prisons they don’t take your clothes and bed away. Suddenly everything stopped in a 8.4 Who’s Who in the SPE 197 moment of dead silence. Someone replied but they do. After that, everyone— prisoners, guards and staff—accepted the self-imposed limit on expressing the obvious truth. 8.4.1.3 Prisoner 3401: Colonization Prisoner 3401 was the only Asian-American participant, and the shortest, at 5 feet, 2 inches in height. He seems to have wanted to ﬁt in. Zimbardo (2008:136) described him as usually quite serious and polite when he was dealing with the guards. During breakfast on Monday morning, as noted above, he had shown solidarity with prisoners considering a hunger strike. A few hours later he agreed with 5704 that it was time to resist. 3401 suggested that his fellow Cell 1 prisoners push their beds against the cell door (Zimbardo, 2008:60, 63). He became a colonizer only when he learned that Prisoner 8612, the deﬁant inmate, returned from his Monday evening meeting with Zimbardo and Carlo Prescott. 8612 told the other prisoners that “I could not get out! They wouldn’t let me out! “You can’t get out of here!” (Zimbardo, 2008:67–70). The other prisoners came to believe that if this rebellious leader couldn’t get out, they, too, were stuck in jail for the duration of the experiment. Zimbardo commented that had a real impact on the prisoners and transformed the SPE into the Stanford Prison. This change came from the prisoners themselves, who accepted the reality of the SPE. They considered themselves unable to quit the experiment on demand and walk out at will (Zimbardo, 2008, 70–71). This is an example of how a subordinate group legitimizes the authority and rules of an organization and supports those with power over them. Max Weber (1947, 324) noted that voluntary submission is a basic criterion of authority. Peter Blau (1964, 200) elaborated on this, explaining that authority rests on the acceptance of social norms that are enforced by a collectivity of subordinates on its individual members. That is, social constraints compel individuals to comply. The failure of the prisoner rebellion and the capitulation of its leader sent a powerful message to the other study participants that resistance was futile, and it was in their best interest to recognize the legitimacy of the prison guards. Prisoner 3401 had a parole board hearing on Wednesday. He informed the board that he deserved parole because he believed his conduct had been beyond reproach and that his full rehabilitation can be assured. The guards, however, reported that 3401 has been a two-bit trouble maker and meekly mimicked bad behavior. Craig Haney asked what his role was in the prisoner uprising, to which 3401 honestly replied that he didn’t stop it and in fact had encouraged it. Prescott said that he would not parole 3401 if he were the last man in the prison (Zimbardo, 2008: 134–135). This would seem to have sealed 3401’s fate for the rest of the experiment. Goffman (1961:61–64) held that colonizers may take actions to remain incarcerated. It turned out that 3401 did not want parole, if it meant that he would forfeit his compensation, which he really needed (Zimbardo, 2008:140). That evening 3401 developed a full body rash and had to be released. Again, a medical condition 198 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation justiﬁed a prisoner-participant getting released from jail. He received appropriate medication from Student Health Services and was sent home (Zimbardo, 2008:143). 8.4.1.4 Prisoner 2093: Conversion According to Goffman (1961:61–64), the convert has a more disciplined and moralistic approach to life. He identiﬁes with and assists the staff when dealing with fellow inmates and displays enthusiasm for the institution. Prisoner 2093, however, identiﬁed with an ideal prison guard, insisting that the SPE guards demonstrate moral responsibility. When he was interviewed for the experiment, he replied that 10 years from now he would like to improve efﬁciency in unorganized and inefﬁcient areas of our government. He told the two Palo Alto police ofﬁcers who arrested him on Sunday that he was prepared to be arrested without any resistance. 2093 was 5 feet, 8 inches tall, with 170 pounds of solid muscle. One of the ofﬁcers, Ofﬁcer Bob, thought that 2093 might be some kind of “nut case” who wanted to prove something with his karate lessons. Ofﬁcer Joe, later told Zimbardo that 2093 was like a military drill ofﬁcer or a sergeant in the army. The other prisoners nicknamed him “Sarge” because of his militaristic style of obediently following orders. 2093 had strong values that would eventually come into conﬂict with those of the guards (Zimbardo, 2008:38–39, 47). After breakfast on Monday, when two prisoners refused to return to their cell, three guards pushed them into their cell. Just then, 2093 called out that he was willing to volunteer to clean the dishes, perhaps in an attempt to ease the rising tensions that would go on to lead to the prisoner uprising. After lunch, the guards lined up the prisoners and ordered them to state their numbers, starting with the prisoner at the end. 2093 started it off in a fast, loud response which the other prisoners picked up with some variations (Zimbardo, 2008:59, 64). Tuesday evening was visiting night. The prisoners were served a hot meal with seconds and double desserts. Guard Helmann was sitting at the head of the table and asked 2093 if he never had it so good and whether his mother ever gave him seconds? 2093 answered “No” to both, whereupon Helmann picked some food off 2093’s plate and walked away. 2093’s father showed up at visiting night. 2093 bragged that he had memorized all 17 rules that must be obeyed. His father asked what right does the research team have to enforce that, and mentioned civil rights. Helmann, who was hovering nearby, interjected that people in prison have no civil rights. 2093’s father wanted more privacy to speak with his son but Guard Helmann told him that was not allowed. 2093’s father appeared upset but accepted this limit. 2093 told his father about the counts, exercises, chores and lights-out. 2093 added that he expected it to be worse. His father asked how, and Helmann explained that two of the original prisoners are no longer in prison and two were in maximum security (Zimbardo, 2008:93, 118). During the Wednesday night count, Guard Helmann suddenly asked 2093, “Why are you such an ass-licker? Why do you try to be obedient so much?” 2093 retorted 8.4 Who’s Who in the SPE 199 that “it’s in my nature to be obedient” (Zimbardo, 2008:120). A few minutes later, Helmann opened the door to the Hole. Inside was 416, who had replaced 8612, the intransigent rebel who was released on Monday night. 416 was holding a sausage in each hand because he didn’t eat them at dinner. Helmann announced that none of them would have blankets tonight. Helmann ordered 2093 to tell 416 that “you’re going to kick his ass if he doesn’t eat the sausages.” 2093 asserted that he would not use a profane word toward another human being and that he was willing not to have a bed tonight. Guard Landry suggested that 2093 say, “you’re going to kick him in the rear end.” 2093 walked over to 416, repeating the exact same words to him, explaining that he did so because he was ordered to. Zimbardo (2008:121–124) wrote that this was a power struggle between Helmann, the most controlling, power- hungry guard and the totally obedient prisoner, who was a man of principle. Prisoner 2093 appeared before the Parole Board on Thursday. He told them that he had followed all the rules from day one and would not give up his pay in exchange for parole. He had spent summer quarter at Stanford living in the back of his car and had a little trouble sleeping the ﬁrst night because the prison bed was too soft. He had been eating better in prison and had more time to relax than the previous 2 months. He also explained that he did not apply for parole on Wednesday because he didn’t want to get ahead of other prisoners who were having a harder time than he was. 8.4.2 Prison Guards While prisoners have been the focus of research ethics, fewer studies have been done on prison guards. In their review of the literature on stress and burnout among correctional ofﬁcers, Schaufeli and Peeters (2000) found that correctional ofﬁcers are expected to both guard prisoners and facilitate rehabilitation. Guards in the SPE, however, were only expected to be tough and maintain order and discipline. The purpose of the SPE was not to reform prisoners but to learn how prisons change people when they are faced with all-powerful guards (Zimbardo, 2008:65). 8.4.2.1 A Study of Guards at State Correctional Institutions Criminologist Mary Ann Farkus (2000) conducted in-depth interviews with 79 ofﬁ- cers at two medium-security state correctional institutions. She identiﬁed ﬁve types of prison guards. The most common were “Rule enforcers” (43%), who followed the rules, were inﬂexible in discipline and expected deference to their authority and obedience from the inmates. They observed distinctions in rank and obeyed their orders that came down the chain of command. They tended to work the second and third shifts when the warden and associate wardens were usually not at the prison. “Hard liners” were a subtype of Rule enforcers and accounted for approximately 14% of those interviewed. They held more militaristic values of being a guard, and 200 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation were abusive and aggressive toward inmates. Like the Rule enforcers, they worked the later shifts. One-ﬁfth (21.5%) were “People workers,” who modiﬁed the formal rules by creating their own informal reward and punishment system. They were seen as professionals trying to do their very best. They developed a comfortable style of working with inmates. They were most likely to work the ﬁrst or day shift, and least likely to work the third or graveyard shift. “Synthetic ofﬁcers” occupied a niche between the Rule enforcers and People workers. They closely followed the rules and identiﬁed with ofﬁcial goals, but tried to take circumstances into account. However, they were more likely than the People Workers to distrust the inmates. The Synthetic ofﬁcers preferred the day shift and composed approximately 14% of the interviewees. About 7.5% of those interviewed were classiﬁed as “Loners.” They tended to be female and Black ofﬁcers between the ages of 26 and 36. They closely followed the rules to validate their authority to the inmates and coworkers and avoided making mistakes. 8.4.2.2 The Stanford Prison Guards On Friday when the SPE ended, all participants were invited to a debrieﬁng session (Zimbardo, 2008:182–183). The former inmates named three guards who, like Farkus’s Hard liners, had been creatively abusive or speciﬁcally singled them out for abuse. The SPE prisoners identiﬁed two guards who resembled Farkus’s People workers and had done small favors for them or had distanced themselves from the more abusive guards, Other SPE guards had done their job and gone by the book, similar to Farkus’s Rule enforcers. Zimbardo (2008:202–203) analyzed hours of video tapes and found 25 incidents of prisoner–guard interactions. Two independent raters scored the interactions on Asking Questions, Giving Commands, Offering Information, Using Individuating (positive) or Deindividuating (negative) References, Making Threats, Giving Resis- tance, Helping Others and Exhibiting Aggression. Overall, negative hostile interac- tions outnumbered positive interactions between guards and prisoners. Guards were more likely than prisoners to be assertive. The number counts were times when abuse was most likely to occur and guards had increased their harassment of prisoners over time. No deindividuating reference occurred during the very ﬁrst two count interactions, compared with an average of 5.4 such references in the very last two counts just before SPE ended. The guards averaged 0.3 depreciating insults during the ﬁrst two counts but averaged 5.7 times on the last counts. The night shift was headed by Hellmann, nicknamed “John Wayne,” because he was the hardest on the prisoners. His shift issued an average of 9.3 commands versus 4.0 for the other two shifts, and he made twice as many deprecating insults (5.2 versus 2.3). This supports Farkas (2000), who found that Hard liners and Rule enforcers were more likely to work the second and third shifts, while corrections ofﬁcers, who were 8.4 Who’s Who in the SPE 201 People workers, were more likely to work the ﬁrst shift and less likely to work the third. It also suggests that Zimbardo’s attempts to set unusual hours for the shifts may have contributed to a time disorientation that lowered social inhibitions for the SPE guards on the morning shift, which started at 2 a.m., when few if any members of the research team were around. 8.4.3 Father McDermott After the Monday rebellion, Zimbardo created the Grievance Committee of prisoners who were elected by their comrades. The committee demanded that glasses be returned, that there be less physical and verbal abuse and that religious services be provided for prisoners who wished to attend them. Zimbardo contacted a Catholic priest he knew to play prison chaplain. As it turned out, Father McDermott (not his real name) had actually served in this role in Washington, DC. He agreed to talk with some of the prisoners on Wednesday and then give Zimbardo his honest evaluation of how realistic the prison experience seemed (2008, 101). He met with the prisoners in chairs against the wall between Cells 2 and 3, with Zimbardo in a chair next to the priest. The conversations started with brief intro- ductions followed by questions about the prisoner’s life, his family, how he was being treated, how he was feeling and whether he had any complaints. As prison chaplain, he asked if he could offer any assistance. Father McDermott asked several of the prisoners whether they or their family had sought legal counsel because the prisoners did not have much pull in their present situation. Zimbardo (2008:102–105) was pleased that the priest had been drawn into the simulation, but wary when McDermott promised to contact 7358’s mother so she could arrange for legal help from his cousin who worked in the local public defender’s ofﬁce. He called and told her that her son needed legal representation if he wanted to get out of the Stanford County Jail. She then called her nephew in the public defender’s ofﬁce, who in turn called Zimbardo. A meeting was scheduled for Friday morning. 8.4.4 Carlo Prescott Readers will recall that Prescott, the former inmate of San Quentin State Prison, had been invited by a student in Zimbardo’s social psychology class to talk about his experiences. Afterward Zimbardo asked Prescott to coteach a new summer school course in 1971 and kept him on as an SPE advisor. When Father McDermott told Zimbardo that he was going to follow up concerning legal counsel for Prisoner 7258, Zimbardo quickly improvised a parole process. Parole was not part of the original information or instructions given to the prisoners. Zimbardo then asked Prescott to chair the parole committee. 202 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation Chairing the Parole Board would be a role reversal for Prescott, whose own petitions for parole had been denied many times (Zimbardo, 2008: 54, 57–58, 68, 100). He began the ﬁrst SPE Parole Board meeting by telling the other three members—research assistant Craig Hanney, a male graduate student, and a female secretary, both of whom knew little about the study—that parole boards had turned down ideal candidates for arbitrary and/or biased reasons, e.g., because a candidate was raised in a low-income neighborhood or because they didn’t like the prisoner’s face. In short, prisons are a big business and need prisoners (Zimbardo, 2008:131, 498). Prescott dealt with the student prisoners in much the same way he had been dealt with by real parole boards. The ﬁrst parole candidate was Prisoner 4325 from Cell 3 who said he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon but wished to plead not guilty. Prescott cynically asked if he is implying that the arresting ofﬁcers, who have had a number of years of experience, just happened to pick him up out of all of Palo Alto? He went on to ask about 4325’s criminal history that had put him in a situation to be arrested, then asked if he had shot or stabbed someone. Haney, Zimbardo’s graduate student research assistant, and other board members tried to shift the questioning to how 4325 had been adjusting to prison life. Prescott, however, wanted to know what the prisoner would do if he were to be released. 4325 said he was going to UC Berkeley to study physics. Prescott’s follow-up asked him about his religious beliefs and why he has not taken advantage of the prison’s programs of group or vocational therapy. Prescott had been asked these types of questions at his parole hearings, although Prescott knew that the SPE did not offer therapy programs (Zimbardo, 2008:132–133). It is not clear how well the research staff prepared 4325 to answer detailed questions about his crime. When Prisoner 3401 was brought into the board meeting with a paper bag over his head, Prescott wanted it removed so he could see his face. 3401 is revealed to be Asian American. Prescott played the race card. “While Oriental people are likely to be good citizens, very few are in prisons” (Zimbardo, 2008:135). Prescott told 3401 that after hearing his previous answers, he considered him to be a constant trouble- maker who derided the simulated prison. “I wouldn’t parole you if you were the last man in the prison. I think you’re the least likely prospect to parole Zimbardo, 2008:135). 3401 really needed his money and was unwilling to forfeit it for early release. In that sense, he was a colonizer who wanted to remain in prison. Zimbardo (2008:142–143) was taken aback by Prescott’s transformation from someone he had worked with developing the project to his performance as Parole Board Chair. This blurred the line between the simulation and reality of the parole process. Zimbardo knew that Prescott had nightmares before his Parole Board hearings, in which he had only a few minutes to present his case to board members who were not really listening to him. 8.4 Who’s Who in the SPE 203 8.4.5 A Psychology Department Colleague and Wife Gordon Bower was Zimbardo’s colleague in the psychology department, a very serious scholar and former graduate school roommate. But Zimbardo (2008:98) considered him a “bleeding-heart liberal.” On Tuesday evening, Bower and his wife happened to be in the psychology building and saw the prisoners on the ﬁfth ﬂoor where they had been temporarily moved, to avoid a rumored raid on the prison. Bower and his wife went out and bought the prisoners some doughnuts. Later they went down to the basement, found the door open and saw Zimbardo. Bower asked Zimbardo what was going on, and Zimbardo brieﬂy described the research. Bower wondered what the independent variable was, at which point Zimbardo got angry and asked him to leave. Bower’s question was not irrelevant, though it did not take into account the fact that the SPE was more of a simulation than an experiment. Although participants were randomly assigned to the roles of guard and prisoner, the study did indeed lack explicit, independent and dependent variables. A simulation is designed and carried out when an investigator wants to understand the natural dynamics and relationships in a social situation but it is not feasible to conduct the study in a real-world setting. Good simulations are interactive, and researchers (or game players) often adjust the ongoing scenario. Unlike many social psychological laboratory experiments, in which the experi- menter manipulates the situation according to a predetermined research design, Zimbardo let the simulation evolve and had to improvise adjustments: the Grievance Committee which he created on Monday after the rebellion, agreeing to let prisoners leave the experiment due to health or medical conditions, bringing in a prison chaplain, establishing the Parole Board and ending the SPE early. He knew he had no control group but envisioned conducting group comparisons in the future (Zimbardo, 2008:197). 8.4.6 Prisoner 1037’s Parents Prisoner 1037 started out being rebellious, but after that, he slowly withdrew while remaining minimally cooperative. During the Monday morning rebellion, he joined his cellmate, 8612, in urging the occupants of Cell 3 to barricade themselves in and to ﬁght the guards, for the time had come for violent revolution. A bit later, when Prisoner 1037 refused to come out of his cell, three guards threw him to the ground, handcuffed his ankles and dragged him by his feet out into the hallway. With his feet chained together, they dragged him into the Hole. Prisoner 1037 was subsequently elected to sit on the Grievance Committee representing Cell 2. The committee met with Zimbardo and presented its demands: return glasses, administer less physical and verbal abuse and offer religious services. Zimbardo told them he would meet with the staff that night and make some changes. 204 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation But later that evening, when Prisoner 1037 learned from his cellmate, 8612, that no one could quit, he felt he was really a prisoner and was totally helpless. On Tuesday evening, Prisoner 1037’s parents came to see him. His mother was worried about his appearance. On her way out, she brought this up with Zimbardo. She said her son looked haggard and had not been sleeping through the night, because the guards woke them up for something called counts. Zimbardo explained what counts were. He then asked the father if his son could take it, to which the father replied, “Sure he can, he’s a real leader” (Zimbardo, 2008:97). But the mother was not deterred. That night, she wrote a letter to Zimbardo in which she repeated her concerns, adding that neither she nor her son had expected anything as severe as what she had seen and heard. She reported that her son at ﬁrst had been sorry that he had volunteered but had gone through several different moods and was more resigned now. She closed with the thought that this would be the hardest money he would ever earn in his life. At the Wednesday parole board hearing, Prescott noted that 1037 seemed rather depressed. 1037 told the parole board that on Monday he rebelled, thinking he was being treated unjustly, but that evening he ﬁnally realized that he was unworthy of better treatment. After that, he did his best to cooperate. Zimbardo (2008:138) noted that this statement resembled the same of kind declarations made by American POWs who were the subjects of mind-control experiments during the Korean War. During his hearing, 1037 told the board that he would consider parole even if it meant forfeiting his salary. On Thursday, Zimbardo told Prisoner 1037 that he would be immediately paroled and would get full pay for the entire experiment after the study and ﬁnal surveys were completed. His parents picked him up during visiting hours on Thursday evening. 8.4.7 Christina Maslach Christina Maslach had been Zimbardo’s teaching assistant and had collaborated with him on other research projects, as well as serving as an informal editor of several of his books. She had just completed her Ph.D. at Stanford and was about to join the psychology department at UC Berkeley as an assistant professor. She was also romantically involved with Zimbardo—they would be married a year after the prison study ended. She was not closely involved in the ongoing simulation because she was part of a team that was scheduled to do a thorough evaluation of staff, prisoners and guards on Friday. On Thursday, she unexpectedly became directly involved when she was asked to serve on the Parole Board as a replacement for Haney, who had a family emergency. She apparently did not participate very much in the hearing. That evening, she came down to the prison to meet Zimbardo for a late dinner. On her way in, she stopped to talk with one of the guards, who she described as being very pleasant, polite and friendly. Later on, she was told by one of the research staff that she should take a 8.5 Discussion and Conclusion 205 look at the meanest, toughest guard, Hellmann “John Wayne,” who had just come on duty. When she looked through the observation point, she was stunned to discover it was the same guard she had chatted with earlier, who now moved and talked differently, cursing with a southern accent and swinging his club (Zimbardo, 2008:169). When she was in the superintendent’s ofﬁce with Zimbardo, he told her to look at the prisoners chained together by their ankles with paper bags over their heads on their way to the toilet. She said that she had already seen it and averted her gaze. She began to cry and told Zimbardo that she was leaving and to forget about dinner. He ran after her and told her no one else had reacted as she just had. The others who had failed to convince Zimbardo to release speciﬁc prisoners to end the experiment early lacked legitimate or expert power over Zimbardo (2008:237, 457–458). However, as Zimbardo’s romantic partner, Maslach possessed personal referent power, which involves a threat of rejection from a person who is highly valued or loved by another (French and Raven, 1959:154–155). Maslach replied that she did not care if every- one in the world thought that what was going on was okay, she thought it was simply wrong, and that Zimbardo was personally responsible for the prisoners’ suffering. The argument was intense, unlike any they had had before. He acknowledged his responsibility and decided he would end the experiment on Friday morning (Zimbardo, 2008:170–171). 8.5 Discussion and Conclusion The SPE proved to be highly controversial. Like Milgram’s study, Zimbardo’s evolving experimental design and ﬁndings challenged how people might act in a situation requiring obedience to an authority, whether a researcher or prison guard. The SPE raised ethical issues on informed consent and protecting vulnerable sub- jects. Also, like Milgram’s study, it was replicated both scientiﬁcally and on television and became part of larger discussions about prison riots, abuses and penal reform. 8.5.1 Ethical Issues Two ethical issues raised by the SPE are the ability of subjects to withdraw from a research study at any time, and the failure to minimize harm and end the study when abusive behavior escalates. Regarding the matter of withdrawing, according to the Participant Information Sheet, “It is obviously essential that no prisoner can leave once jailed, except through established procedures” (Zimbardo, 1971b:1). The ﬁrst procedure to be established was at the Saturday orientation meeting for the guards. Prison Warden Jaffe, the undergraduate who had led the student class project, and the guards created the list of 17 rules that the prisoners would have to follow. 206 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation Readers will recall that Rule 9 stated that prisoners must never refer to their condition as an experiment or simulation, which threatened the deception essential to the experiment and the roles of the participants. Prisoner 8612 had shouted that it was a “simulated experiment” and been sent to the Hole. However, the ofﬁcial reason, which became the second procedure to be established, was that he appeared to exhibit extreme psychological distress (Zimbardo, 2008:222). He was sent home on Monday evening after only 36 h in jail. The third procedure was following the SPE Parole Board’s recommendations for releasing speciﬁc prisoners. When he submitted his application to the Stanford Review Committee, Zimbardo (2008:120, 235) thought that neither he nor the members of the research committee imagined in advance that any oversight was necessary in an experiment in which college students technically had the freedom to stay or to go, if at any time the going became rougher than they could handle. The Review Committee application asked many of the same questions that would subsequently become required criteria by the Common Rule (45 CFR46.111(a)(6), including the criterion that “when appropriate, the research plan makes adequate provision for monitoring the data collected to ensure the safety of subjects.” Today, an IRB could require the creation of a Clinical Study Oversight Commit- tee (CSOC) or a Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB). Both are an indepen- dent group of experts that advises study investigators on adverse events and unanticipated problems involving risks to or safety of the subjects. Depending on the scope and risks involved, the DSMP may assign the respon- sibility for data and safety monitoring to the principal investigator (PI), the spon- soring entity, or a data safety monitoring committee or board. Committees oversee projects with greater than minimal risk, while boards are usually reserved for studies that may have major risks for research participants (Amdur, 2006). The DSMP includes the schedule for reviewing the data and progress of the study, the reporting of adverse events, and rules outlining under what circumstances individual participants should be stopped from continuing their participation in the study and under what conditions the study as a whole should be terminated (NHLBI, 2008). However, if the research is not a clinical trial, but does involve greater than minimal risks to participants, IRB approval of a data safety monitoring plan is required and a Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) or Observational Study Monitoring Board (OSMB) may be required (NHLBI, 2008). In hindsight, an independent monitoring board should have been in place. When the SPE ended, Zimbardo (2008:189, 234–235) admitted that he had a serious conﬂict of interest as PI and prison superintendent. He thought that if someone else had been acting as superintendent, he would have been able to assess the situation more objectively and would likely have ended the experiment earlier. But, more to the point, he also acknowledged that the experiment required oversight and that someone should have had authority over him to end it. 8.5 Discussion and Conclusion 207 8.5.2 Should the Prison Experiment Be Replicated? Scott Plous, a former student of Zimbardo’s and a professor at Wesleyan University who maintained the Stanford Experiment Website (n.d.), contended that the stan- dards for using human participants in research would not permit such an experiment today and that it is thus unlikely to ever be replicated (Alexander, 2001). In 2004, David Frohnmayer, president of the University of Oregon, stated that Zimbardo’s work has never been replicated; the fact that it cannot be repeated because of the ethical restrictions of human subjects committees is validation to some extent of the power of the experiment. Social psychologists do, however, continue to produce evidence that situational factors can have powerful inﬂuences over the behavior of individuals (Frohnmayer, 2004). Zimbardo maintained that the participants suffered no long-term harm, even though some had symptoms of mental breakdown during the experiment (Alexan- der, 2001). He claimed that most subsequent research on prison roles has been limited to paper-and-pencil tests, asking people things like, “Imagine you were a guard, how would you behave?” (O’Toole, 1997). One simulation-based study was conducted in 1979 at the University of New South Wales, Australia (Lovibond et al., 1979; Gross, 2008; Zimbardo, 2008:251). It involved three variations on prisons as total institutions. The Standard Custodial baseline experiment placed nonconvict volunteers in a situation closely resembling a medium-to-high-security prison. The prison ofﬁcers addressed the prisoners by their numbers and the prisoners were required to address the ofﬁcers as Sir or Mr., followed by their surname. The second experiment, Individualized Custody, differed from the baseline by emphasizing the need to keep the prisoners securely in custody while allowing inmates to retain their self-respect. In the third experiment, Partici- patory, the guards were trained to encourage and reinforce social and responsible prisoner behavior without an emphasis on keeping them securely in custody. Six prisoners and four guards spent 4 days in the experimental prison. Not surprisingly, the Standard Custodial variation exhibited the most harassment by prison ofﬁcers, while a few prisoners worked out ways to outsmart, belittle and frustrate the ofﬁcers. The Participatory had the least hostility and developed relations of mutual tolerance and cooperation. The Individualized Custodial variation featured social distancing between the ofﬁcers and the prisoners, resulting in very few incidents occurring. The researchers concluded that the observed hostile and con- frontational behavior was the result of the social context, rather than the psycholog- ical characteristics of the participants. Morgan et al. (1979) argued that the experiment would more accurately match that of a school or hospital. 8.5.3 Research on Evil Practices Zimbardo has spent a good deal of his career since 1971 studying the psychology of evil, pointing out what has been gained from the SPE and how it can help improve the prison system. The SPE demonstrated that the behaviors of guards and prisoners 208 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation were not a result of their personality types but rather of values, norms and behavior generated by the prison environment, rules and role expectations. Individuals will vary in their role adaptations to speciﬁc situations. The focus, then, should be on the group, and not on particular individual psychological characteristics. Zimbardo, like Milgram, contended that the intense psychological reactions experienced by participants during the experiment were transient and did not seriously or negatively affect the lives of the participants. Zimbardo administered a number of psychological tests before the experiment, while it was ongoing and immediately after it ended. He noted that the mood of those who were released early was, as expected, negative during the experiment, but the posttest revealed a great increase in positivity and a corresponding decrease in negativity among the pris- oners. Interestingly, the guards also experienced an increase in positivity and a decrease in negativity between their intermediate and ﬁnal test scores. He claimed that at the end of the study, both groups had returned to their initial baselines, suggesting that the changes were situation-speciﬁc and the result of the roles participants played (Zimbardo, 2008, 201). Here, we can turn to an illustrative point of comparison, Abu Ghraib, the Iraq prison used by American forces in Iraq to hold prisoners of war. In 2003, it was the site of a scandal in which American military personnel tortured and abused inmates. Around midnight on October 25, 2003, three Iraqi detainees were dragged from their cells, made to crawl on the ﬂoor naked, chained together and forced into simulated sexual acts (358). The Schlesinger Report (2004) on the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison during the war in Iraq identiﬁed a failure of command involving a lack of adequate procedures for the processing, interrogating and releasing of prisoners. Commanders had to improvise the organizational and command relationships, resulting in poor oversight of lower-level personnel. These are exactly the same issues that enabled the Stanford guards to abuse and humiliate their prisoners. Zimbardo (2008, 331,347, 358–359) was asked to testify on behalf of Staff Sargent Ivan Fredrick, who was in charge of the night shift at Abu Ghraib. Since Frederick had pleaded guilty, Zimbardo’s testimony focused on the situational and systemic factors that facilitated the torture and abuse. He drew parallels between the SPE and Abu Ghraib. Most incidents occurred at night, when high ranking prison ofﬁcials were not likely to be around. He compared SPE guard “John Wayne” with a reserve corporal in Iraq as a catalyst for making things happen. 8.5.4 Conclusion The SPE is perhaps one of the two or three best known social behavioral science research studies. It is discussed in many introductory psychology text books as a model for the power of the situation, as well as topics in other social science methodology and research ethics courses. It has generated comments, criticisms and implications for the real world of prisons. This chapter has shown how Zimbardo’s previous work inﬂuenced his ideas and research design for the SPE. In contrast to many accounts, which are organized chronologically over the 6 days of References 209 the experiment, the focus here has been on how the prisoners, the guards, Carlo Prescott, the ex-convict who advised Zimbardo and served as head of the SPE Parole Board, and Father McDermott, the SPE prison chaplain, forced Zimbardo to take a more hands on approach to the experiment and create new procedures and entities to address their concerns. Fortunately, he relied on and followed their advice. Finally, as noted above, he listened to Christina Maslach, who successfully persuaded him to end the experiment early. Acknowledgments I wish to thank Chris Herrera, Jonathan K. Rosen, David Segal and Ruth Spivak for their comments on this chapter. References Alexander, M. (2001, August 22). Thirty years later, Stanford Prison Experiment lives on. Stanford Report. Accessed April 22, 2022, from https://news.stanford.edu/news/2001/august22/ prison2-822.html?msclkid=7d17df2ec26f11ec8086da6bf715d359 Amdur, R. J. (2006). Provisions for data monitoring. In E. A. Bankert, & J. R. Amdur (Eds.), Institutional review board: Management and function, 2nd edition (pp. 160–165). Jones & Bartlet Banuazizi, A., & Movahedi, S. (1975). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison: A method- ological analysis. American Psychologist, 30, 152–160. Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. Wiley. Farkas, M. A. (2000). A typology of correctional ofﬁcers. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 44(4), 431–449. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0306624X00444003 Festinger, L., Pepitone, A., & Newcombe, T. (1952). Some consequences of deindividuation in a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 47, 382–389. French, J. R. P., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150–167). Institute for Social Research. Frohnmayer, D. (2004, November 30). “Situational ethics, social deception, and lessons of machiavelli” Judge learned hand award Luncheon Oregon chapter of the American Jewish Committee Tuesday. http://president.uoregon.edu/speeches/situationalethics.shtml Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums. Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. Doubleday Anchor. http://www.diligio.com/goffman.htm Gross, B. (2008, Winter/December). Prison violence: Does brutality come with the badge? The Forensic Examiner. http://www.theforensicexaminer.com/archive/winter08/6/ Haney, C., Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Review, 30, 4–17. Lovibond, S. H., Mithiran, & Adams, W. G. (1979). Effects of three experimental prison environ- ments on the behaviour of non-convict volunteer subjects. Australian Psychologist, 14(3), 273–285. Maslach, C. (1971). The “truth” about false confessions. The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 20(2), 141–146. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0031675 Maslach, C. (1974). Social and personal bases of individuation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29(3), 411–425. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0036031 Maslach, C., Marshall, G., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1972). Hypnotic control of peripheral skin temperature: A case report. Psychophysiology, 9(6), 600–605. https://doi.org/10.1111/j. 1469-8986.1972.tb00769.x 210 8 The Stanford Prison Experiment: The Power of the Situation Morgan, A. H., Lovibond, S. H., & Adams, W. G. (1979). Comments on S. H. Lovibond, Mithiran, & W. G. Adams: “The effects of three experimental prison environments on the behaviour of non-convict volunteer subjects”. Australian Psychologist, 14(3), 273–287. NHLBI. (2008). National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Data and safety monitoring policy. http:// www.nhlbi.nih.gov/funding/policies/dsmpolicy.htm O’Toole, K. (1997, January 8). The Stanford prison experiment: Still powerful after all these years. Stanford report. Stanford University News Service. http://www.stanford.edu/news/gif/ snewshd.gif Prescott, C. (2005, April 28). The lie of the Stanford prison experiment. The Stanford Daily. Sawyer, K. D. (2021). George Jackson, 50 years later. Accessed January 18, 2022, from https:// sfbayview.com/2021/08/george-jackson-50-years-later/?msclkid=4afbd2c7c26b11 eca875b013aedf20b3 Schaufeli, W. B., & Peeters, M. C. W. (2000). Job stress and burnout among correctional ofﬁcers: A literature review. International Journal of Stress Management, 7(1), 19–48. https://doi.org/10. 1023/A:1009514731657 Schlesinger Report. (2004). Final report of the independent panel to review Department of Defense Detention Operations. http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/24_08_04_ abughraibreport.pdf SPE Website. (n.d.). Stanford Prison Experiment Website. The story: An overview of the experi- ment. Accessed February 28, 2022, from https://www.prisonexp.org/the-story Weber, M. (1947). The theory of social and economic organization. Oxford University Press. Zimbardo, P. (1969). The human choice: Individuation, reason and order versus deindividuation, impulse, and chaos. In W. J. Arnold & D. Levine (Eds.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 17, pp. 237–307). University of Nebraska Press. Zimbardo, P. G. (1970). The human choice: Individuation, reason, and order versus deindividuation, impulse, and chaos. In W. J. Arnold & D. Levine (Eds.), 1969 Nebraska symposium on motivation (pp. 237–307). University of Nebraska Press. Accessed January 19, 2022, from https://stacks.stanford.edu/ﬁle/gk002bt7757/gk002bt7757.pdf Zimbardo, P. G. (1971a). Application for institutional approval of research involving human subjects. August, 1971. Available at: http://www.prisonexp.org/pdf/humansubjects.pdf. Accessed December 1, 2023. Zimbardo, P. G. (1971b). Prison life study: General information sheet. August, 1971. Available at: http://www.prisonexp.org/pdf/geninfo.pdf. Accessed December 1, 2023. Zimbardo, P. G. (2008). The lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. Random House. Zimbardo, P. G., Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Jaffe, D. (1972). Stanford prison experiment. Philip G. Zimbardo, Inc. (Tape recording). Zimbardo, P. G., Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Jaffe, D. (1972, April 8). The mind is a formidable jailer: A Pirandellian prison. New York Times Magazine, Section 6, 36, ff. Zimbardo, P. G., Marshall, G., & Maslach, C. (1971). Liberating behavior from time-bound control: Expanding the present through hypnosis. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1(4), 305–323. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1971.tb00369.x Zimbardo, P. G., Marshall, C., White, G., & Maslach, C. (1973). Objective assessment of hypnot- ically induced time distortion. Science, 181(4096), 282–284. Zimbardo, P. G., Maslach, C., & Haney, C. (2000). Chapter 11: Reﬂections on the Stanford prison experiment: Genesis, transformations, consequences. In T. Blass (Ed.), Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on the milgram paradigm (pp. 193–237). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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