Top5 Secret Points Of Stanford Prison Experiment That Expose Its Reality

Stanford Prison Experiment is a psychological experiment conducted on some students in Stanford University in the year 1971. The experiment was such that the basement of Stanford University was converted into a prison and some students were to live in that prison as prisoners and some students were to live as prisoner guards to keep an eye on those prisoners. Those prisoner guards were given full power to keep the prisoners under control.

This strange experiment was to be conducted for about two weeks. But as the days passed, this experiment was taking a scary form and in a few days this experiment reached such a terrifying mode that this experiment had to be stopped midway. Today this terrifying experiment is known as Stanford Prison Experiment. In today’s article, we will learn about this experiment. So let’s begin.

5) Aim

Philip George Zimbardo, a professor at Stanford University who was a psychologist, thought of conducting a social experiment. The purpose of this experiment was to know what would be the difference in the behavior of both if the power is taken away from a person and given to another person. For this experiment, Zimbardo gave advertisements in local newspapers. Seeing those advertisements, about 75 candidates submitted applications to participate in this experiment.

Now since Zimbardo knew that this experiment was going to test the mental state of the candidates. So for this experiment, Zimbardo needed such candidates who were physically and mentally fit. So out of the 75 candidates who wanted to participate in this experiment, only 24 candidates were such who were physically and mentally fit. So these 24 candidates were finalized for this experiment.

4) Experiment

The most special thing about this experiment was that all the candidates were completely random. Meaning, no candidate knew each other. For this experiment, Zimbardo turned the basement of Stanford University into a fake prison. Which looked exactly like a real prison. Out of those 24 candidates, Zimbardo kept two candidates in reserve and one candidate quits before the experiment begins. So, out of a total of 21 candidates, 11 candidates were made prisoners and 10 candidates were made prisoner guards.

To keep the prisoners under control, the prisoner guards were given a free hand to keep the prisoners under their control by any means. They were not allowed to beat the prisoners. There was a small twist in this experiment. That is, the 11 candidates who were going to become prisoners should not know that they have actually become a part of an experiment. So Zimbardo thought of keeping this experiment completely real. So for this Zimbardo took the help of real police.

The real police goes to the house of the candidates who were going to become prisoners and arrests them and brings them to the real police station. After completing all the formalities with the prisoners in the police station, those prisoners are blindfolded and they are made to sit in a police car. That car takes those prisoners to the fake jail while playing the siren and hands them over to fake prisoner guards. After going to the jail, the clothes of those prisoners are removed and they are given prisoner clothes on which a serial number of each prisoner was written. The whole atmosphere was exactly like a real jail.

3) Torture

Till now this experiment was going perfectly fine. But now this experiment was going to take a terrible form. Iron chains were tied to the feet of the prisoners and in this jail Zimbardo was going to keep an eye on the prisoners by becoming the warden of the prison. On the first day, all the prisoners are made aware of the rules of the prison and all the prisoners go to sleep in their cells. On the second day of the experiment, all the prisoners were sleeping in their cells when at 2:30 in the night, the prisoner guards started blowing whistles and making noises with sticks and called all the prisoners out of their cells.

Actually, the prisoner guards wanted to establish their dominance over the prisoners. The prisoner guards started punishing the prisoners and scolding them for breaking small rules. It seemed as if the prisoner guards had forgotten that they were not real guards but fake guards and this was a part of an experiment. Due to this behavior of the prisoner guards, all the prisoners started fearing them and they avoided breaking every rule of the prison. Due to fear, the condition of the prisoners had become such that they started flattering the prisoner guards. They started agreeing with whatever they said.

In the beginning, if a prisoner broke any rule or made a mistake, the prisoner guards would give that prisoner minor punishments. Like making them do pushups. But as the fear of the prisoner guards was increasing among the prisoners, the prisoner guards started considering themselves more powerful. Because of this, they were making the punishments of the prisoners more brutal. Due to this behavior of the prisoner guards, all the prisoners were so upset that the prisoners refused to come out of their cells to eat. They also tore and threw away the serial code of their prisoner number and started misbehaving with the prisoner guards.

Seeing this kind of behavior of the prisoners, the prisoner guards got very angry and they wanted to get control over those prisoners back. For this, they made the prisoners take off their clothes. The mattresses on which those prisoners used to sleep were taken out of their cells. The limit was crossed when they sprayed the cold carbon dioxide gas present in the fire extinguisher on the prisoners’ bodies. Due to which the prisoners suffered a lot. The prisoner guards had now become so aggressive that they started misbehaving with the prisoners.

Now the prisoner guards started punishing the prisoners without any reason and due to this misbehavior, the mental condition of the prisoners started deteriorating. This jail was now becoming hell for the prisoners. After facing so much torture, a prisoner whose serial number was 8612 was mentally broken. It seemed that he had gone mad due to mental stress. The condition of that prisoner had become such that if he had stayed in this jail for a little more, he would have either become mental for life or he would have killed himself. Seeing this condition of that prisoner, he was released from the jail.

2) Stop

It had been only a few days since this experiment. But now the situation had escalated to such an extent that if these prisoners were tortured further in this manner, they would have either killed themselves or rebelled and killed a prisoner guard. This experiment was supposed to be conducted for 15 days. But to avoid any untoward incident, this experiment was stopped midway. This experiment was so brutal that till date Philip George Zimbardo is criticized for this experiment.

1) Result

This experiment did not go as per the plan but we learn from this experiment that if a person gets power, he starts torturing people below him. He starts considering himself superior and others inferior. He thinks that if I have power, then I can use this power as I wish, who will stop me. This was also the purpose of this experiment. This experiment was not completed, but it certainly achieved its purpose.