the stanford prison experiment & abu ghraib

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THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

PSYCHOLOGISTS STUDYEFFECTSOF DEINDIVIDUATION, DEHUMANIZATION

By Stephanie Cox

The 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment was designed by psychologists to study the effect ofdeindividuation during a power struggle. The results shocked investigators.

In the summer of 1971, 24 college-aged men answered a newspaper ad calling for volunteers for apsychological experiment. The experiment would take up to 2 weeks and paid $15 dollars a day.

The 24 participants, deemed healthy, average and normal by the experiment's psychologists, were

randomly assigned to the roles prisoner or guard. Psychologists constructed a mock prison in theStanford University basement, complete with iron bar cells, a space for solitary confinement, and nowindows or natural light. The cells were bugged with video cameras and microphones so the mockguards could monitor conversations. Philip G. Zimbardo, one of the experiment's designers, served asthe mock prison superintendent, and the experiment's principal psychologist.

The volunteers designated as prisoners were subjected to a surprise arrest from their homes andbrought to the 'prison' to begin the experiment. Nine prisoners filled 3 cells, and 3 guards watchedover the prisoners on each of the 8-hour shifts. The experiment was supposed to be an investigationon the nature of humans in situations involving degradation and dehumanization. What followedshocked psychologists, even in light of notions of human psychology set from previous trials, such asthe Milgram experiment. Important lessons from the Stanford Prison Experiment are still beingdiscussed today.

Study of Unequal Power Struggle with Dehumanization and Deindividuation

On the second day of the experiment, chaos erupted. A prisoner led fellow prisoners to rebellion. Themock guards, only vaguely instructed to 'maintain law and order' struck back with solitaryconfinement, beatings, and public embarrassment as one prisoner was stripped naked in front of cellmates. According to Zimbardo, they had to be reminded by psychologists to relax their strictconsequences. Three days into the experiment, one traumatized prisoner was released early.

Stanford Prison Experiments Halted

After only 6 days, the experiment was shut down. Principal Investigator Philip Zimbardo said the

experiment was stopped before it was even half over because "We had to do so because too manynormal young men were behaving pathologically as powerless prisoners or as sadistic, all-powerfulguards." He later added, "At the beginning of the study there were no differences between thoseassigned randomly to guard and prisoner roles. In less than a week, there were no similarities amongthem; they had become totally different creatures."

Stanford Prison Experiment: What Happened?

Before the Stanford Prison Experiment, the volunteers' identities were specific. They had names,addresses, ages, social security numbers, fingerprints, etc, that were all individual to them. They hadindividual likes, dislikes, and personalities that set them apart from other people. The volunteers, asfar as the experimenters could tell, weren't manifesting any kind of unusual role in society.

Then these volunteers were put into an experiment where they were told to be either a prisoner orprison guard to see the psychological effects of this new role play of inequality for the volunteers.What resulted shed light onto man's darker side.
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Stanford Prison Experiment Today

Several documentaries, books, movies and even other psychology experiments have been based onideas from the ill-fated 1971 experiment. Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment, a documentarywritten by Zimbardo was released in 1992. A film, The Standard Prison Experiment, based on theexperiment is slated for a 2009 release. Das Experiment is a 2001 movie by German director OliverHirschbiegel based on events from the SPE.

Sources

Haney, C. & Zimbardo, P.G., (1998). The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy. Twenty-Five Years Afterthe Stanford Prison Experiment. American Psychologist

Zimbardo, P. G., Maslach, C., & Haney, C. (1999). Reflections on the Stanford Prison Experiment:Genesis, transformations, consequences. Obedience to Authority: Current Perspectives on theMilgram Paradigm. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

LESSONSFROMTHE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

RESULTS, APPLICATIONSAND CRITICISMSOF ZIMBARDO'S STUDY

Stanford Prison Experiment Illustrates Human Behaviors Dualistic Nature

An article titled Demonstrating the Power of Social Situations via a Simulated Prison Experimentthat was released through the American Psychological Association summed up the Stanford Prisonexperiments results by concluding that the Stanford Prison Experiment has become one ofpsychology's most dramatic illustrations of how good people can be transformed into perpetrators ofevil, and healthy people can begin to experience pathological reactions - traceable to situationalforces.

Experiment Founder Psychologist P.G. Zombardo Analyzes Results

The drama of the Stanford Prison Experiment only served to underscore the importance of the lessonslearned from it. One of the experiments founding psychologist, Dr. Philip Zimbardo, discussed howthe results relate to general human psychology in his paper Reflections on the Stanford PrisonExperiment: Genesis, transformations, consequences. Here, Dr. Zimbardo outlines what he deemedwere the 10 most important psychological lessons from the Prison Experiment. Below in shortenedversion are the first 5 lessons:

1. Some situations can exert powerful influences over individuals, causing them to behave inways they would not, could not, predict in advance.

2. Situational power is most salient in novel settings in which the participants cannot call onprevious guidelines for their new behavior and have no historical references to rely on.

3. Situational power involves ambiguity of role boundaries, authoritative or institutionalizedpermission to behave in prescribed ways or to disinhibit traditionally disapproved ways ofresponding.

4. Role playing -- even when acknowledged to be artificial and temporary -- can still come toexert a profoundly realistic impact on the actors.

5. Good people can be induced, seduced, initiated into behaving in evil (irrational, stupid, selfdestructive, antisocial) ways by immersion in "total situations" that can transform humannature in ways that challenge our sense of the stability and consistency of individualpersonality, character, and morality.

Dr. Zimbardo goes on to explain in his paper that based in this experiments results, its clear thatprisons are inhumane and a failed socio-political experiment.

Practical Applications of the Stanford Prison Experiment


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The Stanford Prison Experiment determined the importance of maintaining individuality, dignity andstable social guidelines in order to maintain a situations safety and predictability. The results armedpsychologists with data supporting an ideology that some human behavior is based on a responsesituations rather than innate traits or previous personality. The experiment offered some conclusionsto reasoning behind such horrors and torture brought on by Nazis during the Holocaust, and how suchbrutal behavior may have been, in some part, due to a natural response to a similar situation.(Though the behavior was still inexcusable).

Criticism of Zimbardos Experiment

Some psychologists, such as Erich Fromm, rejected Zimbardos Prison Experiment conclusion thatsome destructive human behavior is due to a situational response rather than innate traits orpersonality. In The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (Fawcett Books, 1973), Fromm points out thePrison experiment volunteers were only evaluated by themselves. In other words, each volunteer tooka battery of personality and psychological tests to determine their normalcy, however, as Frommpoints out, sadism and other destructive traits are often subconscious in the individual.

(Source: Suite101 - http://www.suite101.com/content/lessons-from-the-stanford-prison-experiment-a69418#ixzz1NmuWcHPW)

INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITYOR SOCIAL INFLUENCE

A RESPONSEON HUMAN BEHAVIORFROM "THE LUCIFER EFFECT" By Joseph Wilner

Angel or Demonby Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher

People are capable of both kindness and cruelty in any given situation. Being aware of this choice canprovide preparation for action in a novel and emotional situation.

The psychologist Ervin Staub contended that, Evil that arises out of ordinary thinking and iscommitted by ordinary people is the norm, not the exception (p. 485). This banality of evil is apervasive concept in Philip Zimbardos book The Lucifer Effect[Random House Trade, 2008], whichdiscusses the question of how a typical and ordinary individual is capable of committing atrocities andviolence against a fellow human being.

It is explained that this is not because one is of an evil nature or has a malevolent disposition, butinstead decisions are determined more by the strong situational factors acting on the behavior of anindividual at a given time. Some situational forces acting on the behavior of a typical individual aresuch influences as group pressures and group identity. Particularly, a diffusion of responsibility andthe dehumanization of others, are some impacting influences that lead to abusive and corrosiveactions against other people or groups.

Social Acceptance

The situational influence enacted and perpetuated by authority may be viewed in the context of thegroup pressures that promote conformity and obedience. Zimbardo discusses that authority can
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secure total obedience through the threat of group rejection or through the enticement of groupacceptance.

Further, the individual that maintains autonomy and becomes an outsider, instead of conforming togroup attitudes, may experience an emotional burden from dissonance stemming from the powerfulneed to belong. As the book points out, autonomy comes at a psychic cost (p. 265). This seems tobe a poignant notion for considering the process or metamorphosis that takes place when one isunable to resist the pressures of a collectively harmful ideology.

Dehumanizing the "Enemy"

The concept of dehumanization is a particularly profound force in the disturbing acts perpetuated byone human being on another. This entails the process by which a one group views another group asless human or less deserving of human dignity. Much political propaganda can stigmatize andsegregate a specified group, and in so doing promote the prejudice, racism, and discrimination thatprompts evil and harmful behavior.

One example of dehumanization is the derogatory names and remarks that are directed toward aspecific group. These labels can negatively transform a social perception of a group or individualand lead to cruelty and disdain. Zimbardo provides numerous examples of historical genocides, suchas Nazi Germany, that accomplished this moral disengagement and lead to barbaric treatment of

different ethnic cultures.

Nazi's were motivated through propaganda films and posters that derogated other ethnicities asbeing inferior human beings. This is discussed in the text as a form of cognitive conditioning thatturns these others into enemies. This form of propaganda educes fear and hatred in the minds ofcitizens and soldiers to condition a willingness to defeat this enemy at any cost.

The Anonymous Individual

Deindividuation is another force that can impel a typically calm person to enact violence and harmagainst another. The idea of deindividuation is seen through the use of uniforms or attire thatpromotes anonymity and therefore provides displaced responsibility for ones actions. In the famous

Stanford Prison Experiment, one technique to impart this anonymity was through the reflectivesunglasses worn by the guards. This provided them a shielded identity that masked a personalaccountability, as they did not have to make eye contact with the prisoners.

When anonymity is present in conjunction with the opportunity to act aggressively, it can increase thechances that harmful behavior will be induced. This can be seen in many cultures where aggressivebehavior may be glorified, or what may be considered a culture of violence where aggressive normsand values play an important role.

The individual has displaced responsibility in the context of strong social influence to conform toaggressive behavior and so is more willing to disregard the consequences. This may relate to the ideaof institutional or social permission to act aggressively and one way of promoting this is throughproviding the means to feel anonymous.

Ordinary Hero's

The forces that influence the typical individual may also be applied in a positive context in examiningthe banality of heroism, or in other words, the potential for an everyday person to act in a morealtruistic and helpful manner. The idea of labels through words and rhetoric is one example where thesocial influence could cogently begin to alter perceptions in a positive direction to foster more heroicactions as opposed to evil.

Developing a focus on the heroic antecdotes in society and perpetuating these actions could impactthe social dynamic. It also becomes relevant for the individual to begin examining what they maytruly be capable of when presented with a novel situation where stakes are high.

Self-Restraint

The Lucifer Effect would contend that all people are capable of committing atrocious behavior, butthat the individual has the ability to reject the authoritative appeal when there is clear moral
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aberration. A quote from Albert Bandura may help exemplify that the decision for behavior is a choicethough it can be a difficult task to maintain. Our ability to selectively engage and disengage ourmoral standardshelps to explain how people can be barbarically cruel in one moment andcompassionate the next. Though environment plays a role in behavior, an individual accountabilityprovides the means to develop a virtuous character and strong ethical framework.

(Source: Suite 101 - http://suite101.com/article/individual-accountability-or-social-influence-a165116)

(The following article is from Slate Magazine : http://www.slate.com/id/2100419/)

[Before we read this: What happened at Abu Ghraib? In the fall of 2003, Iraqi prisonerswere beaten, stripped naked, confined in small spaces, tortured, sexually humiliated,and abused by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib, a sprawling prison complex nearBaghdad. The abuse was kept hidden by the U.S. military until photographs of thevictims and their smiling tormentors were released to a stunned American public.Several investigations into the scandal were launched. Their assessment of the"brutality and purposeless sadism" at Abu Ghraib is shocking. Source:http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586483197 ]

SITUATIONISTETHICS

THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT DOESN'T EXPLAIN ABUGHRAIB

By William SaletanPosted Wednesday, May 12, 2004, at 6:51 PM ET

Are the American soldiers who abused Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison "a few who have betrayedour values," as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims? Or are they victims of a prison systemguaranteed to produce atrocities?

In recent days, the latter view has taken hold, buttressed by the Stanford Prison Experiment, a 1971study in which upstanding young men assigned to be "guards" in a mock jail abused their "prisoners."The study's designer, former Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo, has become the media's favoriteexpert on prison abuse, imprinting his blame-the-situation attitude on newspaper, magazine, and

television coverage of the Iraqi prison scandal. The emerging spin is that the Stanford experimentexplains scientifically what happened at Abu Ghraib.

But science, particularly social science, isn't all scientific. Every experimenter begins by drawing abox. Inside the box are the factors he decides to control or measure. The restincluding himare leftout, either because he can't control or measure them, or because he doesn't think they're important.The box-drawing process is seldom scientific and often cultural or political. Consequently, excludedfactors often turn out to be more important than included ones. That's why the Stanford experimentdoesn't explainor excuseAbu Ghraib.

In a Boston Globe op-ed this week, Zimbardo argues,

The terrible things my guards [at Stanford] did to their prisoners were comparable to the horrors
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inflicted on the Iraqi detainees. My guards repeatedly stripped their prisoners naked, hooded them,chained them, denied them food or bedding privileges, put them into solitary confinement, and madethem clean toilet bowls with their bare hands. Over time, these amusements took a sexual turn,such as having the prisoners simulate sodomy on each other. Human behavior is much more underthe control of situational forces than most of us recognize or want to acknowledge.

The abuse Zimbardo describes at Stanford does resemble the abuse at Abu Ghraib. But thedifferences are more significant. Here's what happened at Abu Ghraib, according to the now-famousTaguba report:

Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet positioning a nakeddetainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, andpenis to simulate electric torture having sex with a female detainee Using military working dogs(without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severelyinjuring a detainee Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical lightand perhaps a broom stick.

Why did guards at Abu Ghraib, unlike guards at Stanford, go beyond humiliation to violence, severeinjury, and rape? To answer that question, you have to look not at the factors Zimbardo studied, butat the factors he left out. For example:

1. Personality. The Stanford experimenters picked as guards and inmates "the 24 subjects whowere judged to be most stable (physically and mentally), most mature, and least involved in anti-

social behavior." This group was so nonviolent that according to Zimbardo, "Virtually all had indicateda preference for being a prisoner because they could not imagine going to college and ending up as aprison guard. On the other hand, they could imagine being imprisoned for a driving violation or someact of civil disobedience." The soldiers implicated at Abu Ghraib, however, were led by two veteranprison guards, one of whom had received three court orders to stay away from his ex-wife, who saidhe had thrown her against a wall and had threatened her with guns.

2. Race. At Stanford, with the exception of one Asian-American, the prisoners, like the guards, werewhite. At Abu Ghraib, the guards were Americans, but the prisoners were Iraqis. The guards didn'tunderstand Iraq, hated being there, and were under constant assault from Iraqi mortars outside theprison walls. To them, the inmates seemed a foreign enemy.

The Abu Ghraib guards clearly wanted less interaction with their prisoners than the Stanford guardswanted with theirs. At Stanford, roll calls initially lasted 10 minutes but grew to hours as guardsenjoyed toying with inmates. At Abu Ghraib, roll calls that were supposed to be conducted twice a daywere instead conducted twice a week. At Stanford, according to Zimbardo, "Most of the guardsseemed to be distressed by the decision to stop the experiment. ... None of the guards ever failed tocome to work on time for their shift, and indeed, on several occasions guards remained on dutyvoluntarily and uncomplaining for extra hourswithout additional pay." None of this was true at AbuGhraib.

3. Supervisors' input. On the second day of the Stanford experiment, prisoners began pleading forrelease. Over the next five days of the six-day study, researchers released five of the 10 "prisoners."If you desperately wanted out, you got out. According to Zimbardo, the experimenters allowedprisoners to be visited by "their own parents and friends on visiting nights; a Catholic priest; a publicdefender; many professional psychologists; and graduate students, secretaries, and staff of the
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psychology department," many of whom "took part in parole board hearings or spoke to participantsand looked at them directly." When guards pushed the limitsfor example, handcuffing andblindfolding a prisoner in the counseling office (yes, the inmates got regular counselinganotheramenity neglected at Abu Ghraib)the experimenters ordered them to stop.

At Abu Ghraib, none of this was true. The key issue in dispute is which supervisorover-aggressivemilitary intelligence officers; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the allegedly callous commander of U.S. forcesin Iraq; Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the military police boss who allegedly ignored reports of abuse, orotherscontributed most to the scandal.

Zimbardo thinks his "situationist" theory holds supervisors accountable for the the situations theycreate. But by defining situations in broad terms such as "dehumanization" and "diffusion ofresponsibility," he obscures the precise ways in which supervisors influence abuse. In the Globe, forexample, Zimbardo lists, among "the terrible things my guards did," the fact that the Stanford guards"chained" their prisoners. But according to the original 1973journal articleon the study, "A chain andlock were placed around one ankle" of each prisoner as part of the study's design, to serve as a"constant reminder ... of the oppressiveness of the environment."

Likewise, in an article hailing Stanford as a template for Abu Ghraib, the New York Times says of

Zimbardo's experiment,

Within days the "guards" had become swaggering and sadistic, to the point of placing bags over theprisoners' heads, forcing them to strip naked and encouraging them to perform sexual acts. [Zimbardo] said that while the rest of the world was shocked by the images from Iraq, "I was notsurprised that it happened." "I have exact, parallel pictures of prisoners with bags over their heads,"from the 1971 study, he said.

But it was the experimenters, not the guards, who came up with the bag idea. As Zimbardo's wife,Christina Maslach, explained recently,

The toilet was outside the confines of the prison yard, and this had posed a problem for theresearchers. They did not want the prisoners to see people and places in the outside world, whichwould have broken the total environment they were trying to create. So the routine for the bathroomruns was to put paper bags over the prisoners' heads so they couldn't see anything

The same thing happened at Abu Ghraib. Prisoners have been photographed wearing hoods; butaccording to guards, it was intelligence officers who initially brought "hooded" prisoners to them. Lastweek, the commander of military prisons in Iraq announced that intelligence officers would no longer"hood" detainees, in effect confirming that they had been doing so.

This turns out to be the most interesting parallel between Stanford and Abu Ghraib: In both inquiries,the role of influential supervisors was wrongly screened out. According to the Times, "GeneralKarpinski has complained that the initial investigation ordered by General Sanchez was limited to theconduct of her military police brigade and did not examine in any detail the role played by militaryintelligence and private contractors."

By focusing on the power of situations and roles, Zimbardo also obscures the ability of participants toalter them. He halted the Stanford experiment after six days largely because Maslach observed theproceedings and told him, "What you are doing to those boys is a terrible thing!" Reflecting on thismoment, Zimbardo concludes,

I had become a Prison Superintendent, the second role I played in addition to that of PrincipalInvestigator. I began to talk, walk and act like a rigid institutional authority figure more concernedabout the security of "my prison" than the needs of the young men entrusted to my care as a
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psychological researcher. In a sense, I consider that the most profound measure of the power of thissituation was the extent to which it transformed me.

In other words, the situation made me do it. Even the creator and supervisor is a cog. Perhaps we'llhear the same defense from the folks who ran Abu Ghraib. The point of the Stanford experiment, afterall, was to discredit personal responsibility. "Individual behavior is largely under the control of socialforces and environmental contingencies rather than 'personality traits,' 'character,' 'will power,' orother empirically unvalidated constructs," Zimbardo told Congress in 1971. "Thus we create anillusion of freedom by attributing more internal control to ourselves, to the individual, than actuallyexists."

Why do we create this "illusion"? Zimbardo's colleague in the experiment, Craig Haney, says we do sobecause "if we can attribute deviance, failure, and breakdowns to the individual flaws of others, thenwe are absolved." Maybe so. But if we blame the situation, the perpetrators are absolved, too.
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Co mprehension/Composition Questions

Answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper.

1) In your own words, describe the set-up and results of the Stanford Prison Experiment.

2) What is meant by the terms dehumanization and deindividuation? In what way did theseoccur during the experiment? How might they apply to the behavior of characters in Lord of theFlies? Give examples of dehumanization or deindividuation from history or current events.

3) According to the article Individual Accountability or Social Influence, how might obedienceto authority and the pressure for social acceptance affect our behavior in group situations? Howmight obedience to authority and conformity to the group have influenced the behavior ofcharacters in Lord of the Flies? For members of Jacks tribe, what are the consequences of non-conformity?

4) According to the final article, what differences existed between the treatment of experimentalsubjects during the Stanford Prison Experiment and the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib?What accounts for these differences?

5) Do you agree with the following statement by Phil Zimbardo? Why or why not?

"Individual behavior is largely under the control of social forces and environmental contingenciesrather than 'personality traits,' 'character,' 'will power,' or other empirically unvalidated constructs.Thus we create an illusion of freedom by attributing more internal control to ourselves, to theindividual, than actually exists."

the stanford prison experiment & abu ghraib

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