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T H E 4 0 T H A N N I V E R S A R Y

THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

• Conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo • Involved 24 students acting as “prisoners” or “guards” • Resulted in extreme adaptation to the roles

• Guards enforced authoritarian measures & used psychological torture to maintain control

• Prisoners accepted psychological abuse • Zimbardo (“prison superintendent”) permitted abuse to continue

• Focused on effect of deindividuation and anonymity on aggression.

• Well-documented, with many videos + photos available

40 YEARS LATER…

• “Lord of the Flies” principle • Other deindividuation experiments tested

• Anonymous women inflict more pain than identifiable women • Masked children more aggressive with taking candy than identifiable

children on Halloween

• This deindividuation phenomenon spans many cultures • Cultures in which appearance is not altered prior to war only kill,

torture, or mutilate 10% of the time • Cultures in which appearance is altered (uniforms, war paint, masks,

hoods, etc.) kill, torture, or mutilate 90% of the time.

MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS SINCE 1971

• “Discovering Psychology” • 26 programs on psychology • Formatted to be useable in classroom • Now commonly shown in high school psychology courses and

psychology courses around the world

• Shyness Clinic and Institute • Shyness as a connection between a clinical and social problem • Began with article in 1975 in Psychology Today • Experimental clinic eventually led to formal training and resource clinic

• Heroic Imagination Project • How can ordinary people be led to do extraordinarily good, heroic

things?

SOURCES

• Zimbardo, Philip G. Stanford Prison Experiment. Social Psychology Network. Web. 6 Sept. 2015.

• Drury, Scott, Scott A. Hutchens, Duane E. Shuttlesworth, and Carole L. White. “Philip G. Zimbardo on His Career and the Stanford Prison Experiment’s 40th Anniversary.” History of Psychology 15.2 (2012): 161-70. Print.