Stanford prison experiment: Encyclopedia II - Stanford prison experiment - Results

Stanford prison experiment - Results

The experiment very quickly got out of hand. Prisoners suffered — and accepted — sadistic and humiliating treatment at the hands of the guards, and by the end many showed severe emotional disturbance.

After a relatively uneventful first day, a riot broke out on day two. Guards volunteered extra hours and worked together to break up the revolt, without supervision from the research staff. After this point, the guards tried to divide the prisoners and pit them against each other by setting up a "good" cell block and a "bad" cell block, to make the prisoners think that there were "informers" amidst their ranks. The efforts were largely effective, and there were no further large-scale rebellions. According to Zimbardo's former convict consultants, the tactic was similar to those used successfully in real US prisons.

Prisoner "counts", which had initially been devised to help prisoners get acquainted with their identity numbers, devolved into hours-long ordeals, in which guards tormented the prisoners and imposed physical punishments including long bouts of forced exercise.

The prison quickly became unsanitary and inhospitable. Bathroom rights became privileges which could be, and frequently were, denied. Some prisoners were made to clean toilets using their bare hands. Mattresses were removed from the "bad" cell, and prisoners were forced to sleep on the concrete floor without clothing. Food was also frequently denied as a means of punishment. Prisoners endured forced nudity and even homosexual acts of humiliation.

Zimbardo himself has cited his own increasing absorption in the experiment, in which he actively participated and guided. On the fourth day, he and the guards reacted to a rumor of an escape plot by attempting to move the entire experiment to a real, unused cell block at the local police department because it was more "secure". The police department refused him, citing insurance concerns, and Zimbardo recalls being angry and disgusted at the lack of cooperation between his and the police's correctional facilities.

As the experiment proceeded, several of the guards became progressively more sadistic — particularly at night, when they thought the cameras were off. Experimenters said approximately one-third of the guards exhibited "genuine" sadistic tendencies. Most of the guards were upset when the experiment was cut off early.

One point that Zimbardo used to argue that the participants internalized their roles, was that when offered "parole" in exchange for forfeiture of all of their pay, most prisoners accepted the deal. Then, when their parole was nonetheless "rejected", none left the experiment. Zimbardo argues that there was no reason for them to continue participating if they would have given up the material compensation in order to leave.

Prisoners began to show severe acute emotional disturbances. One prisoner developed a psychosomatic rash all over his body upon finding out that his "parole" had been turned down (Zimbardo turned him down because he thought he was merely trying to "con" his way out of the prison by faking illness). Uncontrollable crying and disorganized thinking were common among the prisoners. Two of the prisoners suffered such severe trauma that they were removed from the experiment early and replaced.

One of the replacement prisoners, Prisoner #416, was horrified at the guards' treatment and went on a hunger strike in protest. He was forced into solitary confinement in a small closet for three hours, and the other prisoners saw him as a troublemaker. To exploit this feeling, the guards offered the other prisoners a choice: Either the prisoners could give up their blankets, or #416 would be kept in solitary confinement overnight. The other prisoners chose to keep their blankets. Later Zimbardo intervened and had #416 returned to his cell.

Finally, Zimbardo decided to terminate the experiment early. Christina Maslach, a researcher previously unfamiliar with the experiment who had been brought in to conduct interviews, objected to the appalling conditions of the "prison". She is currently married to Zimbardo, and was having a relationship with him at the time of the experiment. Zimbardo has noted that of the over fifty outsiders who had seen the prison, she was the only one who ever questioned its morality. After only six days of the planned two weeks, the experiment was shut down.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Results", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki