If you and your friends are called together to participate in an experiment, you are randomly divided into two groups. One group plays the prison officer and the other plays the prisoner. You are sent to a completely simulated prison environment.
The person who played the prison officer was changed into a police uniform and wearing a baton. The person who played the prisoner was stripped naked, disinfected, coded, changed into prison clothes, and shackled.
Prison officers may resort to any means other than physical attacks to maintain order or authority. Imagine how things would evolve. Will it get out of hand? How long does it take?
The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Professor Philip Zimbado, a professor at Stanford University in 1971, showed us an answer.
Experimental Settings:
Date: Officially opened on August 15, 1971. It was originally scheduled to last two weeks, but was forcibly terminated by Zimbado on day 6 due to the gradual spiral of events out of control. (Regarding the causes and consequences of the termination of the experiment, there is an Easter egg at the end of the article Oh [Ador])
Location: Stanford University, a simulated prison on the first floor converted from office rooms.
Principal: Professor Philip Zimbado
Subject Recruitment: Some time before the experiment began, the subject recruitment announcement was placed in a local newspaper with the following content.
Translation: Male college students were recruited to participate in psychological experiments on prison life. $15 a day, 1-2 weeks, starting August 14. Interested parties please contact...
In total, more than 70 people signed up, and after the initial screening, a total of 24 college students were officially allowed to participate in the experiment. By tossing a coin, the 24 students were randomly assigned to a group of prisoners or prison officers. (Comment: As you can see from the pictures, the recruitment advertisement is very brief, and the description of the experimental content is very limited.) There is reason to believe that the students who sign up for the experiment know nothing about what will happen in the future and are not mentally prepared enough. This is also one of the points where the Stanford prison experiment has been criticized. The Stanford Prison Experiment directly contributed to the revision of the relevant provisions of the Ethics Committee for Experimental Psychology and Economics. To this day, the No Deception policy remains the absolute red line for conducting economic experiments. ）
Experimental process and results: On the morning of August 14, local police raided the homes of 12 "prisoner group" students and arrested them. (Comment: Working with local police is said to be to make the arrest as realistic as possible. The "raid" is to cause a certain impact on the experimental subjects and make them enter the situation faster. But this design undoubtedly violates the principle of non-deception. The "prisoners" were blindfolded, handcuffed from their homes, and transported to the "Stanford Prison" that Professor Zimbado had set up in advance. After entering the prison, they were searched, stripped of all their clothes, cleaned with lice, numbered, changed into prison uniforms, and were chained to their feet. (Note: This series of operations is to dehumanize, to personalize, to make everyone become uniform, forget that they are independent individuals, and belong to a group and obey the management of the organization.) Are similar means in life easy to relate to? From uniform dress to periodic team building, the philosophy behind it is the same.) After everything was taken care of, the "prisoners" were escorted to the Stanford Mock Prison and began to "serve their sentences."
The students of the "Prison Officers" group also changed into uniform khaki uniforms, each assigned a baton to maintain order, and a pair of sunglasses to avoid eye contact with the students in the "prisoner" group. Prison officers can work three shifts and rest in the next room after work. The duty of prison officers is to maintain prison order and their own authority. In the beginning, both sides were adapting to their new roles. Measures taken by prison officials included raiding the roll call in the middle of the night and giving unruly "prisoners" push-ups. The first day was spent in calm.
Early the next morning, there was a riot in the prison — the "prisoners" rebelled. They tore off the number plate, pressed the bed against the door, and began to deliberately mock the prison officer. This was unexpected by the experimenters. The prison officers were a little overwhelmed at first, but after reacting, they decided to fight violence with violence. They took fire extinguishers and sprayed them inside the cell. The "prisoners" soon could not resist, and the riot was gradually quelled. Subsequently, the prison officer broke the door and entered the cell, stripped the "prisoners" of their clothes, arrested the people who led the riot and locked them up in solitude, and began to gradually humiliate the "prisoners". The problem is that there may be another one that subdues one riot. Prison officials then negotiated ways to create infighting to break up mutual trust among the "prisoners." Prison officers first selected three people who were the least active in the riots, gave them special privileges (such as returning their clothes, allowing them to brush their teeth, eat, go to the toilet, etc.), and let all other "prisoners" see these benefits. Just when the other "prisoners" thought that the three men might be traitors, the prison officials kicked some of them out and selected some "prisoners" for preferential treatment. After several times and three times, the mutual trust between the "prisoners" gradually disintegrated and became more and more suspicious of each other. In this way, it will be difficult for the "prisoners" to form a rope to unite and riot. (Comment: These strategies, which were spontaneously conceived by prison officials, were later confirmed to be the strategies often used in real prisons to deal with prisoners and disintegrate collusion.)
Before the end of the third day, "Prisoner" No. 8612 was "released" early because of his insanity and on the verge of collapse. 8612 first appeared insane and crying, but the experimenters once thought that he was just pretending to be crazy and stupid in an attempt to get out of prison, and warned him and asked him to consider committing adultery in exchange for more freedom in prison. After a while, 8612's mental disorder became more serious and almost completely out of control, and the experimenters had to decide to "release" him.
On the fourth day, the experimenters arranged an open day to invite the parents and friends of the experiment subjects to visit the experiment. In order to avoid causing parents' worries as much as possible, the experimental staff cleaned and repaired the prison environment and "prisoners" in advance. The tour was also designed to be as close as possible to the "prison visit". Each team of parents can only visit their children for 10 minutes and need to do so under the supervision of prison officers. Although some parents are slightly worried about their children's condition, they only intercede with the person in charge, hoping that the prison officials will be kinder to their children. (Note: Under normal circumstances, parents should be able to question the experiment itself and ask for its termination.) Miraculously, when the parents are placed in the prison environment, they invisibly bring in the character scene, they do not ask to terminate the experiment, but only plead with the person in charge, as if tacitly acknowledging that their child is indeed serving a prison sentence, not just participating in a psychological experiment).
On the day of the open day, there were rumors among the "prisoners" that No. 8612, who had been released the day before, was going to bring other partners to "rob the prison" today. This made the prison officials, including the head of the experiment Zimbado, nervous. If he is a social psychologist, Zimbado and his team should be prepared to objectively observe and document this possible event. Miraculously, Zimbado was so involved in experimenting and recognizing his identity as the head of the prison, so his concern was how to prevent "prisoners" from escaping and others from hijacking the prison. To that end, he even approached the local police department to apply for the temporary transfer of his "prisoners" to safer prisons (a request that was rightly rejected). Zimbado is also outraged by this, which fully shows how deep Zimbado entered the role and forgot his own job as a psychologist.) Zimbado then thought of a second way, temporarily moving the "prisoners" to the other floor of the Stanford building, leaving Zimbado alone at the scene to tell them that the experiment was over, so that the robbers would pounce; and when the storm had passed, the "prisoners" would be transported back. Other methods include inserting informants in "prisoners" in an attempt to trick No. 8612 back into continuing detention.
That night, Zimbado was alone waiting anxiously for a prison robbery that would happen at an unknown time. A colleague happened to come over to visit his psychology experiment. His colleague asked him a simple question: What are the independent variables of this experiment? Zimbado was furious at first, angry that when he was preventing the robbery of the prison, some unknown person asked such an unsure question!! Soon he became extremely surprised that he had entered the role of prison director so deeply, forgetting that he was a psychologist and that his intention was to study the influence of the social environment on people!
The robbery seemed like a rumor all along, but both the prison officer and Zimbado put a lot of effort into preventing it—the Zimbado team was so nervous that they forgot to collect data on that day's experiments. Their energy cannot be wasted. Prison officials began to punish prisoners more intensely, including but not limited to letting "prisoners" clean toilets with their bare hands and last for hours of push-ups, opening and closing jumps.
On the fifth day, a Catholic prison pastor was invited to talk to the "prisoners" one by one. The pastor told the "prisoners" that they could ask a lawyer for help applying for bail. Some took the priest's advice. One of the "prisoners," No. 819, refused to talk to the priest, refused to eat, and showed signs of a nervous breakdown. Zimbado decided to let him terminate the experiment early, but the other "prisoners" in the prison shouted that he was a coward. 819 cried bitterly and refused to terminate the experiment early, afraid that he would really become a coward and a fugitive in the eyes of others. No matter how much Zimbado persuaded him, it didn't work until Zimbado called out his real name and told him it was just an experiment, that he was a college student, not a prisoner. 819 suddenly stopped crying, like a child who had just woken up from a nightmare, calmly accepting to quit the experiment.
On the sixth day, the lawyer in charge of applying for bail followed the procedure and asked the "prisoner" a series of legal questions, even though he knew it was just an experiment.
The bail hearings were held as scheduled, after which the "prisoners" were asked to return to prison to await sentencing. Even if the "prisoners" applied to terminate the experiment, the same effect would have been achieved, but none of them had made such an application. (Note: By this stage, the "prisoners" have gradually shown signs of learned helplessness, that is, because they know that resistance is useless, they will no longer resist, give up all opportunities, and resign themselves to fate.) ）
There is an episode in which there are new "prisoners" in the back who feel unfair to the prison environment and rebel. At this time, there is no need for much discipline from the prison officer, and the other old "prisoners" instinctively support the teaching of the new prisoner and the imprisonment of him.
The guards seem to be "enjoying" their power. No one took sick leave, arrived late or left early, or asked for a raise for extra hours throughout the experiment. Some people enjoy this role so much that they later take advantage of the silence in the dead of night, thinking that the experimenters can't see them, and then they will inflict more serious aggression on the "prisoners".
On the sixth day of the experiment, Christina Maslach, a doctor of psychology, was invited to visit the experiment and was shocked by what he saw. She asked zimbado how he could be indifferent to what was happening in front of him and how he could turn a blind eye to what the children were enduring in the experiment. A word awakens the dreamer. At that time, Zimbado realized that the progress of the experiment had exceeded his expectations and exceeded the conventional scope of scientific ethics, and urgently stopped the experiment.
Overall Evaluation:
The Stanford Prison Experiment revealed the enormous impact of systematic environmental shaping on people's personalities. This effect often occurs when we are unaware.
Have you ever come out of the mall for a day with a big bag and a small bag in your hand, and the next day you can't fully understand why you spend so much money on things you don't really need and like?
Have you ever acted in some instant that you couldn't understand or repeat afterwards?
It's all about the system's environmental shaping that quietly influences you to make decisions.
Never underestimate the impact of circumstances and situations on you. In certain situations, a person may become an angel or a demon, becoming unaware of himself. People who are responsible for themselves should put themselves in a good environment as much as possible. Suddenly, one day, you will find "I didn't even know that I was such a good person!" ”
ponder:
What defines a person? If you try to think like a prisoner and live like a prisoner, will you really become a prisoner? If you are given power, if you are given authority, will you be able to use them with restraint, or will you unwittingly become a demon who abuses power?
The Stanford Prison Experiment echoes a story in the Bible. Lucifer was God's favorite angel, but one day he rebelled. God sent him to hell to punish him. After the angel Lucifer went down to hell, he became Satan, the embodiment of evil. Even if it is as holy as an angel, it will take on a very different appearance as the environment changes. Therefore, the phenomenon of people changing from good to evil as the environment changes is also known as the Lucifer effect. One of Zimbado's books based on this experiment is named after the Lucifer effect.
[Sprinkle flowers] Easter egg part [gift]
In fact, Zimbado and Maslach were already in love and close to the stage of marriage. The following year, Zimbado and Maslach entered the palace of marriage and became the academic couple of Chinser and Ming.
Elderly Zimbado and Maslach couple
bibliography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Day_6:_Study_Cancelled
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-scientists-are-mad-about-each-other/ #
https://www.prisonexp.org/setting-up