To explain evil. Philosophical interpretation of Philip Zimbardo's Prison Experiment

The main problem of this paper is the issue of the evil and attempts at explaining this phenomenon. It is an analysis and reinterpretation of the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo. The leading argumentation is composed of Hannah Arendt's thesis of the banality of evil and philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Paul Ricoeur. Facing the radical experiment's conclusions, questions about human free will, motives and responsibility was raised. Therefore, the main thesis of this paper is an objection against the radical postulate of social psychologists about a profound influence a situation has on our moral decisions. The conclusion leads us to assumption of the incomprehensible character of evil and a strong need to expand our ability of self-reliant thinking allowing us to make a morally right choices and to counteract evil.

Power

This chapter replays the Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo, going into detail about how the arbitrary assignment of guard and prisoner roles led to some of the most sadistic behavior witnessed in a laboratory environment. The study demonstrated how behavioral scripts are put in motion, where people conform to social stereotypes and role expectations as driven by power and influence differentials. The experiment is juxtaposed against the 2016 Academy Awards, where indirect forms of power resulted in a lack of minority nominations, bringing to light a multitude of signs pointing to indirect discrimination. The outcry led to a commitment to both overhaul membership in the academy and improve the mechanics of the awards process. Implications for the workplace extend to diversity and inclusion practices and policies to safeguard against harassment and bullying.

Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE): Icon and Controversy

The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) took place at a time when the sources of authoritarianism and evil were a focal concern in psychology. It emerged from a tradition of activist social psychological research beginning with Solomon Asch in the 1940s and extending through Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments in the early 1960s. The SPE was a product of the research program of social psychologist Philip Zimbardo, a member of the Stanford psychology faculty since 1968. Discussions among Zimbardo’s students in spring 1971 led to a plan to simulate a prison environment. They converted portions of the basement of a University building into a combination booking room and jail. Zimbardo and a number of his graduate and undergraduate students took on supervisory roles. Before the Experiment began, paid participants recruited through newspaper advertisements were screened to eliminate obvious psychopathology, then randomly assigned to either the role of ‘guard’ or ‘prisoner.’ On the first experimental morning August 14, 1971, actual local police simulated an arrest of each of the prisoner participants. After they arrived, blindfolded, a simulated booking took place. Guards escorted them to the prison hallway where prisoners were required to strip and exchange their clothing for simple shifts and slippers. After a simulated spray delousing, they entered makeshift cells. After this, the Experiment evolved as an extended improvisation, by both the guards and prisoners, on prison-related themes. Episodes of deprivation, bullying, and humiliation emerged unplanned. Originally planned to run for two weeks, the Experiment lasted only six days, prematurely terminated when its supervising personnel judged that the simulation had gotten out of their control. The coincidence of its termination with the Attica prison uprising in New York led to its immediate dissemination in the news. Since then the SPE has become one of the most iconic psychological studies of psychology’s modern era. Although intended to expose and ameliorate bad prison conditions, its effectiveness in this regard diminished during a rapid shift in US prison policy, in the mid-1970’s, from reform to repression. Over succeeding decades, the Experiment continued to stimulate the popular imagination, leading to an extensive replication on British television and its portrayal in two feature films. Soon after its original publication, the SPE attracted criticisms of its methodology. After 2010, critical scrutiny of the SPE as well as similar iconic studies from the 1960s and 1970s increased, fueled by the growing ‘replication crisis’ in psychology. This most recent phase of criticism reflects not just a turn toward reflexive disciplinary self-criticism but also the increased availability of archival sources for examination. The SPE continues to excite both passionate support and equally passionate obloquy, much as have other comparable simulations of human social behavior.

The dirty work of the Stanford Prison Experiment: Re-reading the dramaturgy of coercion

Almost 50 years on, the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 remains one of the most notorious and controversial psychology studies ever devised. It has often been treated as a cautionary tale about what can happen in prison situations if there is inadequate staff training or safeguarding, given the inherent power differentials between staff and inmates. But what exactly was the ‘situation’ in the simulated prison at Stanford University, and how exactly did the participants respond to it? This article provides a new analysis of the behaviour of the nine Stanford ‘guards’, which draws on unpublished archival records and original interviews with some of the participants. It adopts an interactionist approach, whereby the individual backgrounds and personalities of the participants are seen to inform their behaviour within the situation provided, as well as vice versa. A key suggestion to emerge from this analysis is that the conduct of the three guard shifts, within the experiment, differed significantly according the interaction of the men on each shift and their influence on each other. The article is framed by the concept of ‘dirty work’ and uses theoretical sources including Goffman and Festinger to explore the extent to which the adoption of a particular social role (in this case, that of prison guard) affects change in the behaviour and beliefs of individual role players. The argument seeks to show that some of the Stanford guards adopted strategies of ‘role distancing’ to insulate themselves from the coercive demands of their positions, while others found the guard role impacting troublingly on their senses of self.

Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment from the Perspective of the Social Model of Disability: A Teaching Experience

This article aims to revisit the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) from the perspective of disability studies. The SPE is an issue that inevitably comes to light while teaching Social Psychology and how it contributes to a different course titled Psychological, Social and Cultural Aspects of Disabilities. The SPE presents a pioneering piece of research within Social Psychology. Similarly, the social model has reformed the concept of disability. The SPE and further studies demonstrate the importance of social forces in shaping human behaviour; i.e. they explore how good people might turn evil in particular circumstances. The social model of disability emphasises the role of social oppression in creating disability. As these two courses contribute to each other, it is discussed that an appropriate level of analysis within the discipline of psychology has much to contribute to the inherently interdisciplinary field of disability studies and vice versa. Interdisciplinary curriculums might be a step towards inclusive higher education.

Breaking open the jail gates: Debating leadership, conformity and dissent within the Stanford Prison Experiment

It is now possible to debate the processes involved in the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the broader nature of human cruelty, because the original materials from the study are now publicly accessible. Thanks to this access we can now see how leadership permeated the study from start to finish. While social norms of harshness may have played a key role in the Stanford Prison Experiment, these did not arise spontaneously but rather were carefully crafted and activated by the experimenters. These insights not only advance our understanding of the original research, but also contribute to a growing body of work on the importance of identity and leadership for the emergence of cruelty.