, which is considered one of the milestones in behavioral psychology, it turns out that much of it was fake.

Almost 50 years after the Stanford Prison Experiment (zimbardo) , which is considered one of the milestones in behavioral psychology, it turns out that much of it was fake. Conclusions about stanford prison experiment.

Stanford Prison Experiment Almost 50 years after the Stanford Prison Experiment (zimbardo) , which is considered one of the milestones in behavioral psychology, it turns out that much of it was fake. Conclusions about stanford prison experiment.

"How we went about testing these questions and what we found in the stanford experiment (philip zimbardo) may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, In our prison experiment guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress."





This is how Philip Zimbardo summed up the experiment. In 1971, it was one of the most recognized psychological experiments in the world.



Its findings were extensively covered in the media and influenced the perception of many in terms of the role of prisons, the source of criminal behavior and the responsibility a person has for his actions.



Almost 50 years later, French filmmaker Thibault Le Texier, backed with documents and experimental recordings, reveals that this summary was simply not true.



The "sadistic" behavior of the prison guards did not appear on its own - the researchers nurtured and prepared it. The despair and pressure of the prisoners were, in part, simply a show.



Eighteen students from Stanford University participated in the experiment. Nine of them were chosen, by tossing a coin, to be the guards, and the other nine were prisoners.



They were "arrested" by the Palo Alto police in their home and brought in a handcuffed car to a police vehicle that took them to the station.



Finally, they were transferred to the "prison": the basement of the building of the psychology department at the university.



About a third of the guards, Zimbardo and his colleagues reported, behaved cruelly toward the prisoners, and it grew worse as the experiment progressed.



They were not allowed to beat the prisoners, but found other ways to humiliate and injure them: they forced them to repeat the prisoner's numbers repeatedly, gave them exhaustive physical training, let them relieve themselves in the bucket and refused to remove him from the cell.



Zimbardo's conclusions from the brief experiment were far-reaching: the situation we are in, he argued, is largely responsible for our behavior and our mental state.



The cruel behavior of the prison guards, as well as the prisoners' depression and helplessness, did not stem from the tendencies they entered the experiment with, but from the situation in which they found themselves.



