Skip to main content
Loading Explore guides…
Stanford Prison Experiment · Acedra
Home
Explore
Psychology
Stanford Prison Experiment
Sign in to save
Chat
If YouTube asks you to sign in, open the video on YouTube.
Watch on YouTube
Reload player
Transcript
9 segments
Copy
Hide video
0:00
[Music] Welcome to Psychology is Nuts. You probably like to think that deep down you're a good person, but that likely isn't true. That's the findings from a very famous study from 1971 known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. It suggests that when the chips are down, you will very likely become a monster toward your fellow human beings. And that same experiment concluded that if you're on the receiving end, your spirit will likely be easily broken. It's so easy,
0:38
in fact, that a college student could do it. The Stanford prison experiment was designed and overseen by social psychologist Philip Zambardo. He wanted to study the effects of imprisonment on human beings. But who has time to go to a real prison? So instead, Zimardo took the Stanford psychology department and converted it into a simulated prison. He hired a bunch of college students to help him out. And he divided them into two groups, guards and prisoners. The prisoners were booked
1:12
just like real prisoners in real life. They were stripped naked and deloused. They were given smoks to wear and weren't allowed to wear any underwear. And they were given numbers to identify them. The guards, on the other hand, were given khaki uniforms, police batons, and mirrored sunglasses. And the guards weren't given any formal instruction. Instead, they were told to defend the prison and keep the prisoners in line. And boy did they ever keep them in line.
1:46
Within just a day, the guards became brutal and abusive. And the prisoners, after a brief violent uprising, quickly became degraded and broken. The guards forced the prisoners to wear bags over their heads and chain them together at the ankles, and they made them poop and pee in buckets in their cells.
2:18
The guards also made the prisoners do push-ups, a lot of them, and they wouldn't let him sleep. And one prisoner wasn't allowed to smoke as much as he liked. And this was 1971, so that's crazy.
2:40
Oh, some of the guards became real jerks. One particularly brutal guard, who everybody nicknamed John Wayne, even developed a southern accent because all the worst prison guards have one. The guards instinctively started using tactics that real life prison guards use, like turning the prisoners against one another to erode their solidarity. and they explored ways of keeping the prisoners blindly obedient just like in real life. Whoa. Thanks for the ride, Topppsy. Probably the biggest unintended
3:17
consequence of the Stanford prison experiment is that everyone lost touch with reality. They all seem to forget that it was an experiment and anyone could leave at any time. One prisoner had to finally be sent home because he became hysterical for a long time. Finally, the experimenters figured out that he'd been broken and should be allowed to go. And that was after just 36 hours. One of the prisoners even went on a hunger strike. And the whole study came to an end when one of the
3:51
experimenters finally objected on moral grounds. The Stanford prison experiment lasted just six days even though it was scheduled for two weeks. That's because everyone involved went kind of loony, including the psychologists who were allowing the study to go on. Later, a review board would determine that the study fell within ethical guidelines and then they changed the guidelines to make sure no one ever did the experiment again. So, there you have it. another
4:22
chapter in our book on the annals of psychologyy's wackiest experiments. Thanks for stopping by.
Here to help you learn
Sign in to keep a private conversation with your course tutor.
Ask me anything about the material…
Sign in to chat