the prison experiments
Conducted in the 1960s, the Milgram experiments presented a deep challenge to American ideas about the power of individual character and free choice.
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The Milgram study is one of the twin towers of experiments in the “situationist” tradition, studies that reveal the extent to which our circumstances and environment influence human behavior. The other is an equally controversial study known as the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971. A former classmate of Stanley Milgram’s at James Monroe High School in the Bronx, Dr. Zimbardo wanted to study the effects of a prison environment on human behavior. He gathered a group of college students, randomly divided them into “prisoners” and “guards,” and placed them in a simulated prison at Stanford University.
Extracts from an interview with Dr.Zimbardo by Believer magazine, below. (I had a hard time selecting interesting bits from it, because the whole interview reads genius. So take the time to go here and read the whole thing.)
BLVR: Another really interesting part of your book is your fairly detailed description of the situation’s impact over you, Philip Zimbardo as the “prison superintendent.” My favorite example in the book is after one of the prisoners broke down and you had to release him, you thought he was going to lead a prison break-in. So you started to get obsessed with this prison break-in in your prison, and you’re trying to reach the chief of police. The officer thinks you’re a nutcase.
PZ: Right, “psycho psychologist”—and that was only the third day! Of course, it was all a rumor, there was no break-in. But see, I had been doing research on rumor transmission; I do a demonstration in my classes, so I’m interested in rumors. And now there was a rumor of a break-in. I was the psychologist! I should have said, “Great, we’re gonna study this.” And if there was a break-in, that would have been a very dramatic thing, what would happen, how would you deal with it? But at that point I had become the prison superintendent, and the only interest you have is your institution. The administrator cares about the institution, the integrity of the institution and its staff, and that’s where, you know, I really switched over to being focused more on the institution, the agenda, the itinerary, and the guards.
BLVR: So you brought the prisoners up to a classroom….
PZ: The fifth-floor storage room, actually; it was terrible. It was this dark room and there were bags over their heads for hours and hours. And I was sitting there too, so it’s wasting time, and nothing happened. We didn’t collect data on the rumor transmission, we just wasted all this time. But do we all realize how stupid we were? No, we blame it on the prisoners. We think that somebody must have spread that rumor to get us upset. So then the guards said, “OK, we’re going to step up, ratchet up the abuse of the prisoners. We’re going to keep them up longer, counts are going to be two hours at a time, push-ups will be doubled, and so forth. Put them in solitary confinement for longer periods for any infraction.” So that was transformative for me, but I still didn’t realize it. It’s not like I stepped back and said, “Oh my god, look at you.”
BLVR: At any point did you have a kind of awareness that “I’m getting sucked into it,” or did that only come afterward?
PZ: No, well—it came out partially when 819… he was beginning to have an emotional breakdown. When the chaplain was interviewing him among the others, he started crying, you know, hysterically, and at that point I thought the chaplain was going to say, “Blow the whistle, look, this is out of control.” In fact, he tells me later, he said, “Oh, that’s a first-offender reaction, that is, they’re all very emotional initially and they have to learn not to do that, because they’re going to look like sissies, they’re going to get abused.” But then 819 goes ballistic, he starts ripping up his pillow and mattress and shit, and they put him in solitary confinement. And his cellmates get punished for not limiting that. He’s now hysterical and one of the guards comes and says, “We think he’s breaking down.” So I bring him up to a recreation room for the cameramen and observers. When prisoners were going to be released we brought them there to settle down, cool down, before we took them to student health, whatever. So I bring this guy there, 819, and I’m saying, “OK, 819, look, time is up, we’re going pay you for the whole time,” and so forth, and just then the guards line up the prisoners and get them to chant: “[Number] 819 is a bad prisoner. Because of what 819 did my cell is a mess. I’m being punished for 819.”
Now this guy starts crying again and says, “I’ve got to go back!” “What do you mean?” He said, “I’ve got to go back and prove I’m not a bad prisoner.” And so that was a shock. And so I said, “Wait a minute, you’re not a prisoner, you’re not 819, this is an experiment, you’re a student, your name is Stewart.” And at that point I said, “And I’m Phil Zimbardo.” He said, “OK, OK.” And I escorted the student out. But saying: “I’m not the superintendent. I’m this other person…”
