July/August 2011 > Features > Stanford Prison Experiment

IT BEGAN WITH AN AD in the classifieds. Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. $15 per day for 1-2 weeks. More than 70 people volunteered to take part in the study, to be conducted in a fake prison housed inside Jordan Hall, on Stanford's Main Quad. The leader of the study was 38-year-old psychology professor Philip Zimbardo. He and his fellow researchers selected 24 applicants and randomly assigned each to be a prisoner or a guard. Zimbardo encouraged the guards to think of themselves as actual guards in a real prison. The study began on Sunday, August 17, 1971. Forty years later, the Stanford Prison Experiment remains among the most notable—and notorious—research projects ever carried out at the University. The public's fascination with the SPE and its implications—the notion, as Zimbardo says, "that these ordinary college students could do such terrible things when caught in that situation"—brought Zimbardo international renown. The Superintendent Mark.

The Artificial Prison of the Human Mind Photo courtesy Philip G. Zimbardo In 1963 1971, a study about prisons was funded by the U.S. Navy to try to better understand problems in the Marine Corps.' prisons. The study was run by a group of researchers at Stanford, led by psychologist Philip G. No one thought the experiment would have any big problems - the participants were just playing a short game of prison. Zimbardo did attempt to make the prison more real with some degrading tactics to simulate a real prison. The guards were made to be quite intimidating - they went to a military surplus to get their khaki outfits and wooden batons. On the chosen start date, the prisoners were arrested for armed robbery and taken from their homes by the actual Palo Alto police, who cooperated with the project. The first day of the experiment was relatively peaceful. This was only the beginning of the problems, though. This environment got to be too much for some of the participants.

How do we use this Conformity for social good? More persistence, attendance, course completion? by uboost Oct 21