Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment 



"the Zimbardo study sheds the harshest light of perhaps any research ever done on the nature of power and its pervasive corruptive powers.

From the standpoint of the guards, the pathology of power led them to exert an “unprecedented degree of control” that was “self-aggrandising” and “self-perpetuating.”  Prisoners in the real world want to wrest back some of this control by any means necessary, and so when released, they “will take action to establish and assert a sense of power.”

While in prison, though, the loss of personal identity and control led  the prisoners to adopt the pathological prisoner syndrome a reaction that took several forms of coping strategies.  They went through stages from disbelief to rebellion; when these didn’t work, they tried to work the system (the “grievance committee”). When those efforts to gain control failed, it was every man for himself as each tried to find ways to preserve their own self-interests and identity. For some, this meant further rebellion and for others it meant becoming excessively obedient, even to the point of siding with the guards against intransigent prisoners.

Zimbardo and his co-authors hoped that the emotional and human price of the study  would provide a model for improvements in the penal system as a whole.  You might not agree with his conclusion, but it’s a thought-provoking one, so I’ll offer it here: “… since prisoners and guards are locked into a dynamic, symbiotic relationship which is destructive to their human nature, guards are also society’s prisoners.” "

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201307/the-rarely-told-true-story-zimbardo-s-prison-experiment


Zimbardo also wrote a book called 'The Lucifer Effect', which focused on why good people do bad things. The book is based on his famous Stanford Prison Experiment and his experience as an expert witness in the Abu Ghraib trial against an "all-american" prison guard.