Copyrighted. Rights are owned by Stanford University Libraries. All Rights Reserved. This includes all rights now in existence or which may hereafter come into existence in the Philip G. Zimbardo papers, 1953-2004 Collection, including but not limited to print, audio, electronic, video, CD ROM, photographic, digital and film, and all revenues deriving from copyright exploitation. This work is protected by copyright law. No part of the materials may be derived, copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form, in whole or in part, without specific permission from the copyright holder.
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Stanford University Libraries
Description
Forty years later, the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) remains among the most notable—and notorious—research projects ever carried out. For six days, half the study's participants endured cruel and dehumanizing abuse at the hands of their peers. At various times, they were taunted, stripped naked, deprived of sleep and forced to use plastic buckets as toilets. Some of them rebelled violently; others became hysterical or withdrew into despair. As the situation descended into chaos, the researchers stood by and watched—until one of their colleagues finally spoke out. 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. It also provoked criticism from other researchers, who questioned the ethics of subjecting student volunteers to such extreme emotional trauma. The study had been approved by Stanford's Human Subjects Research Committee, and Zimbardo says that "neither they nor we could have imagined" that the guards would treat the prisoners so inhumanely. In 1973, an investigation by the American Psychological Association concluded that the prison study had satisfied the profession's existing ethical standards. But in subsequent years, those guidelines were revised to prohibit human-subject simulations modeled on the SPE. "No behavioral research that puts people in that kind of setting can ever be done again in America," Zimbardo says. The Stanford Prison Experiment became the subject of numerous books and documentaries. In the last decade, after the revelations of abuses committed by U.S. military and intelligence personnel at prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, the SPE provided lessons in how good people placed in adverse conditions can act barbarically.
Type
moving image
Format
16mm film
Extent
1 Reel of 1
Identifier
SC0750_s5_b8_01 cst_000038a
Subject
Prison Psychology--Experiments Psychology--Study and teaching Zimbardo, Philip G Stanford University
Place
Stanford (Calif.)
Provenance
Stanford University, Manuscripts Division and University Archives California Revealed is supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.
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