The Stanford Prison Study debunked

 This post follows the same theme as last week’s: fraudulent science.

You are probably familiar with the famous Stanford Prison Study conducted in 1971 by Phillip Zimbardo. Students were assigned roles as either “inmates” or “guards.” in a mock prison. Soon after the experiment began, the guards began mistreating and even torturing the prisoners who passively took the abuse. What this study supposedly demonstrated was that innocent people, when thrown into a situation where they have power over others, will begin to abuse that power.

This study has been widely documented in books, films, and textbooks. Zimbardo was even consulted in a 2004 hearing on the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture. Now, after 50 years, his study has finally been debunked. Among other things, the study’s critics tracked down many of the “inmates,” including one who had screamed ‘I’m burning up inside” and found out that his pain was a performance. As the student recounted, “I have a great job. I get to yell and scream and act all hysterical. I get to act like a prisoner. I was being a good employee. It was a great time.” The “guards,” who were coached to be cruel, reported similar experiences. One said he pretended to be a sadist for kicks. “I took it as a kind of improv exercise. I believed that I was doing what the researchers wanted me to do… I’d never been to the South but I used a southern accent.” In other words, the students weren’t unleashing their ingrained sadism. They were acting.

So now you can rest easy. You probably do not harbor a monster inside of you waiting to emerge in the right context.

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