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oursin journal for this baby. It arose out of discussion with aycheb to be precise.]
Zimbardo Prison Study vs. The BBC Experiment
Or
“Do situational influences determine behavior? Could we all prove to be sadists if placed in the right situation at the right time?”
*A question more than one fictional television drama has played around with, particularly those in the sci-fi/fantasy category.
Followers of the dramas: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek the Next Generation, The Twilight Zone, Dr. Who, Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, BattleStar Galatica (new series), and last but not least, Farscape – know whereof I speak. Think about it – how many times has science fiction writers asked the above question? In Buffy the Vampire Slayer – we had the Initiative, an underground military team organized and hand selected by a psychologist to conduct her own brand of social, behavioral and neurological psychology experiments on – she justified the torture and imprisonment of demons, including OZ for science. Riley and his buds, nice college boys, she turned into monsters through military obedience training – while Spike, a monster, she’s tames, renders almost harmless to anyone but demons, by taking him prisoner and giving him a chip. Farscape through its in depth exploration of the character – Scorpius, asks what makes a torturer – literally depicting all criteria stated in the paragraphs below by Milgram. Or in more than one episode of STNG, we have Riker exploring what it is like to be a prisoner in an asylum and Picard exploring both sides of the torture question – once as a victim, and once as the perpetuator – I Borg. Then there’s Angel – the title character who loves torturing his victims and despises himself for it, justifying his actions by stating that they had it coming. BattleStar Galatica and the treatment of the Cylon prisoners in disturbing and gritty detail – supporting in some respects the psychological view that if we dehumanize the prisoner, if they have no meaning to us, anything goes. Well enough on the television front, after all TV is nice and comfortable, distanced from us, particularly if placed in a science fiction or fantasy setting that we consciously know cannot be real – so how about a bit of reality?
In 2002, the BBC broadcast The Experiment, a psychological study similar to the infamous Zimbardo Prison Study conducted in 1970, except this round it was conceived partly as a reality TV show and partly as a psychological experiment.
Reality TV is in a way a social psychology experiment gone haywire, so is a good portion of the internet come to think of it, but let’s stick to the topic. In reality TV - you take a bunch of people from diverse backgrounds throw them into a group situation that contains precise controls and challenges, then see how they behave. The producers take steps to massage the situation in order to obtain the amount of melodrama that they feel is needed to produce ratings. The difference between a reality TV show and a scientific experiment is two-fold 1) the purpose – an experiment is about science, reality TV is about obtaining high ratings and attracting viewers, (arguably the BBC series was both – except that the funding came from the BBC and was controlled to a good extent by the BBC, a television network, concerned with ratings. While Zimbardo’s project was funded by Stanford University and other educational organizations and purely for scientific reasons. Never intended to be seen by a broad audience or for ratings.) 2) the series of scientific controls put into place to ensure that the data acquired is as accurate as possible. Reality TV suffice it to say does not have as many controls in place as pure experiment would. By its very nature, it has to exist outside the lab, and as a result is contaminated. The more people you involve in an experiment, the more likely it will be contaminated and data proven suspect. Not unlike the controls a biologist or chemist might put into place to ensure their experiment is not contaminated by outside forces. Sort of the difference, if you will, between performing a chemistry experiment over your stove and performing one in a sterile laboratory setting. Or performing a chemistry experiment as a demonstration in an auditorium with millions of cameras and an audience, and performing one in a sterile lab with just a few colleagues present.
Was The Experiment, conducted by psychologists Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, devised for ratings? Not according to the psychologists, who state quite clearly in an article printed in The Guardian on October 31, that “the aim was to test what had become received thinking on the subject , as formulated by the famous Stanford prison experiment, run by Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University California in 1971.”
Haslam argued with Zimbardo’s theory that behavior is situational, stating that personality and other factors such as politics play a role. According to Haslam behavior isn’t necessarily determined by the situation someone finds themselves in, rather that “people are capable of reflecting before acting;” people can in effect choose how to react to the situation and not necessarily be controlled by it. I take issue with Haslam’s interpretation of Zimbardo’s argument. From what I’ve read, which admittedly may be less than Haslam, but on the other hand I do not have an agenda like Haslam does – so may be more impartial - Zimbardo does not state that human behavior was predicated solely upon the situation nor is it determined solely by situation, but rather that situation plays a large role in determining how human beings will behave. We may be perfectly wonderful people in our day to day lives, but when we’re put into a specific situation behave horribly. Or vice versa – be horrible monsters in day to day life but behave beautifully or saintly if placed in the right situation. (An argument more than one person has proposed on line regarding certain character behaviors in TV shows.) Situation plays a tremendous role in how human beings behave according to Zimbardo, but it does not necessarily determine how they will behave.
In 1970, Philip Zimbardo, Craig Haney, and W. Curtis Banks sought to prove Zimbardo’s thesis by gathering a group of Stanford male university students to participate in a prison study in the basement of the Psychology Department at Stanford University. The volunteers were selected at random. Zimbardo flipped a coin to determine which students would be guards and which would be prisoners. Prior to the study all the students got along fairly well, there were no grudges, nor biases/prejudices amongst them. No one had an ax to grind and very few of them even knew one another. Each student came from a similar educational background.
Zimbardo assigned himself the role of Prison Superintendent. No one was given any training or told how to act, the study was not scripted and the participants did not know until they were rounded up, which role they would play. The students rounded up as guards were given night sticks and uniforms, while the students chosen as prisoners were rounded up by the local police, finger-printed, booked, and brought to the simulated cell block in the same manner as an actual prisoner. The guards made them remove their clothing, deloused them, gave them prison uniforms and put them in their cells.
The experiment itself lasted no more than 6 days. Hidden video cameras were used to tape the experiment for study. The participants were not aware they were on tape although they did know that they were participants in an experiment and not being forced to participate. None of the participants were named in the video tapes, their identities were protected. The two groups of students were found to be remarkably similar in their everyday lives, none of the students ever exhibited any negative behavior problems, psychosis, nor did they vary from other normal students. They were not psychology students.
None of the participants received any instruction, any specific training, nor was the experiment scripted. They were just given their roles and told to proceed as if they were guards and/or prisoners. *[Information taken from the following sources: E. Aronson, The Social Animal, p. 8-9, J.T. Gibson & M. Haritos-Fatouros, “The Education of A Torturer”, Readings in Social Psychology, ed. Wayne A. Lesko, 5th Ed., and Video Tape of the Zimbardo Prison Study.]
Within 6 days, Zimbardo and his colleagues chose to end the experiment, here is the reason Zimbardo gives:
“At the end of only six days we had to close down our mock prison because what we saw was frightening. It was no longer apparent to us or most of the subjects where they ended and their roles began. The majority had indeed become “prisoners” or “guards”, no longer able to clearly differentiate between role-playing and self. There were dramatic changes in virtually every aspect of their behavior, thinking and feeling. In less than a week, the experience of imprisonment undid (temporarily) a life-time of learning; human values were suspended, self-concepts were challenged, and the ugliest, most base, psychological side of human nature surfaced. We were horrified because we saw some boys (“guards”) treat other boys as if they were despicable animals, taking pleasure in cruelty, while other boys (“prisoners”) became servile, dehumanized robots who thought only of escape, of their own individual survival, and of their mounting hatred of guards.”* Zimbardo, P. (1971, October 25) The psychological power and pathology of imprisonment (p.3). Statement prepared for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary; Subcommittee No. 3: Hearings on Prison Reform, San Francisco.
What is Zimbardo talking about? When I watched the video I witnessed the following actions:
1. A prisoner chose to resist by fasting, one guard took satisfaction in motivating the other guards to torture this prisoner for his actions. They prodded other prisoners to repeatedly bang on the fasting prisoner’s door. Removed the fasting prisoner’s blanket and asked if any of the other prisoner’s were willing to help him by giving up theirs.
2. Conducted a humiliating sequence in which a prisoner was forced to walk like the bride of Frankenstein and kiss the fasting prisoner or prisoners who resisted. If he fell down or didn’t try hard enough, other prisoners were prodded to tease and make fun of him until he did it right – over and over. Nightsticks were used to beat him around the legs and hands.
The guards exhibited the following behavioral patterns: One was sadistic, one easy-going, and the third a disciplinarian. The prisoners themselves were either docile or resistant. What was astonishing was how quickly they took to their roles within such a short span of time.
Haslam’s study according to the article by Haslam and the FAQ’s [both can be found here: http://education.guardian.co.uk/academicexperts (look for October 31) & http://www.ex.ac.uk/Psychology/seorg/exp/faq.html] , the individuals chosen for the study came from all walks of life, were divided into guards and inmates somewhat randomly, and knew they were being taped for a television audience. Unlike Zimbardo’s study, these participants did not get to keep their anonymity. “The participants were aware of their surveillance by the TV cameras and that this affected their behavior.” Haslam states this is no different than any other psychological experiment – except that the majority of psychological experiments including Zimbardos are not released to people outside the field of study, are not televised to a huge audience of millions of viewers, and the participants themselves maintain a certain level of anonymity that Haslam admits was not maintained in his study. “Part of the problems stemmed from the difficulty of getting people to be fully aware of the consequences of being on television.” (ie. The reality show conundrum, where the ordinary person becomes a celebrity or known personage purely by playing themselves on a game show or TV show.)
Similar to Zimbardo’s study, the participants were unaware at the outset of what was going to happen to them – they did however know that 1) they would be entering a closed system in which there would be two groups, one with more power than the other and that the environment would be challenging and might involve hunger, hardship, anger and resemble a barracks, a prison or a boot camp. They were also aware that they could leave at any time. (It is unclear whether Zimbardo’s study contained that last point, but safe to assume it did.)
Another interesting factor – a few of the prisoners did know about Zimbardo’s study and had looked up the results. Interesting because in the video tape of the Zimbardo study, they revisit it ten years later and one of the participants states that if he had known what was involved he would have acted differently – in fact based on his knowledge of psychology and prison’s, he’s certain that the study would not have affected him the same way – that he would have had more control over the situation. Haslam states that the individuals in the Zimbardo Study should have had the same views against tyranny and the same belief that power corrupts that the current participants did.
Haslam also admits that his study uses a very different experimental design and operation than Zimbardos – it is based on Zimbardo’s but does not recreate it. (So Haslam sets out to test Zimbardo’s thesis but does not recreate Zimbardo’s study scientifically, merely creates a study loosely based on Zimbardo’s??) Also unlike Zimbardo’s study, Haslam did not set up a real prison or attempt to mirror what happens in prisons, setting himself up as Prison Superintendent, but rather was investigating the psychology of group inequality which is a separate issue from what Zimbardo was investigating. While the two studies are certainly comparable, I’m not sure Haslam can claim that his findings outweigh or contradict Zimbardo’s, so much as add texture to Zimbardo’s findings.
Other studies have been conducted that support Zimbardo’s view that individuals will become obedient if pressured by the group and do horrible things to others under group pressure, authority pressure, or situational pressure regardless of personality type. These studies include Stanley Milgram’s famous study where an individual is prodded by a scientific researcher to shock a volunteer into answering a series of questions correctly. (The volunteer isn’t really being shocked but the individual doing the shocking or pulling the triggers, believes that the volunteer is and believes that the scientific researcher accepts full responsibility – the individual is merely following orders.) Another similar study was conducted in a high school setting by Ronald Jones, the famous Third Wave movement (which I vaguely remember seeing a film of in high school). This was a classroom experiment were Jones demonstrated how high school students could have become followers of the Nazi’s in WWII regardless of their beliefs. He disciplined his students to answer questions by standing beside their desks and to begin each with “Mr. Jones”, then demanded they shout slogans, create a salute for class members only, and to report members who didn’t comply with rules. (The rules and guidelines remind me oddly enough of some sororities and fraternities as well as other secret organizations.) The membership in the Third Wave grew from 20 to a 100 students. At the end of the experiment – Jones pointed out to the students that they had bargained their freedom for the comfort of discipline. Yet another study, this one in reality, was conducted via interviews of former Greek military police who tortured political prisoners in 1967-1974. The people interviewed described how they were trained through a variety of measures that dictated obedience and conformity: 1) they were initially tortured themselves. 2) they were rewarded for torturing others, 3) they were punished for refusing to torture or obey, 4) their hostile views towards the prisoners were emphasized. (As an aside, I remember in 1988, being told by two men on leave from the military, that in the army you are taught to rigidly obey – even hazed and tortured and conditioned to do so, since the last thing you want is an army made up of individuals running every which way.) Stanley Milgram came up with the following three reasons for people to obey or disobey authority – which are cited by Janice T. Gibson and Mika Haritos-Fatouros in their study of Greek torturers:
1) Family or school history that encourages obedience and or defiance, 2) Binding influence: made up of on-going experiences that make people feel comfortable when they obey authority. 3) Strain – consists of bad feelings from unpleasant experiences connected with obedience, failure to obey.
Prior to being drafted into service, none of the Greek torturers had records of delinquent or disturbed behavior and all without exception were drafted. That said, the ones chosen were screened and selected for their physical strengths and “appropriate”’ political beliefs.
To some extent, this information supports Haslam’s theory : that what happened in Abu Gharib was the manifestation of one group’s way of thinking about another group – the demonization of the group. Or dehumanization. To a degree that’s true, but does not explain Milgram, Jones, nor Zimbardo’s findings which had little to do with politics or dehumanization. Zimbardo conducted yet another study – this one with women. “Female students were required to shock another student (not in reality, the student merely believed it was real), as part of a “study in empathy”. Some students were made anonymous; they were seated in a dimly lit room, dressed in loose-fitting robes and large hoods, and never referred to by name. Others were easily identifiable; their room was brightly lit, no robes or hoods were used, and each woman wore a name tag. As expected, those students were anonymous administered longer and more severe shocks.” Zimbardo came to the conclusion that a reduced concern over social evaluation – caused weakened restraints against prohibited behavior. What Janice T. Gibson and Mika Haritos-Fatouros found in their study of the Greek torturers was that “torturers have normal personalities. Any of us, in a similar situation, might be capable of the same cruelty.”
The studies above are persuasive evidence that human behavior can to a degree be greatly affected by situational influences as well as genetics, personality, and history. It also suggests that while we can evaluate our actions we may not always do so or be in a situation in which we can.
From my own experiences in prisons and in a variety of group situations, ranging from good to horrid, I can safely state that both Haslam and Zimbardo present valid arguments. In the early 1990s, I spent time counseling prisoners for the Kansas Defender Project in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. My clients ranged from a hit-man to a bank robber. I taught a class in the prison one evening with another student. And represented a prisoner at his parole hearing during a lock-down. A lock-down occurs when a prisoner acts out of bounds and injures another prisoner or guard. In this case there had been a series of knife fights the day before and two guards had been injured along with a prisoner. I observed at Leavenworth the same behavior patterns I saw in Zimbardo’s film. I also observed these same behavior patterns in prison games I saw people play as a child, in junior high, and in sororities and fraternities. I’ve seen similar types of behavior occur on discussion boards where a group will condemn someone and a series of punishments and rewards are allocated for acceptable behavior.
Based on my own experiences and the studies I’ve read and seen conducted, I think certain situations can create monsters or rather bring out the worst in us. And I do believe how relate to one another is to a large degree situational. It’s easy to judge the behavior of others, even ourselves, at a safe distance from the situation, removed from its influence, but not so easy to see what will happen or what you will do inside of it. Zimbardo used his study to attempt to obtain prison reform. He felt that there were certain attributes that a prison situation brought out in human beings that should be avoided at all costs. Was he right? Haslam’s study appears to say no, but then again maybe not. Haslam readily admits his study was not meant to reproduce a realistic prison setting, nor was it as intense as Zimbardo’s study, yet the study was discontinued and the BBC decided not to make it continuing reality series as it may have originally intended. The evidence at least from my rather limited perspective tends to support Zimbardo, but that comes with the disclaimer that I am not a psychologist nor do I pretend to be. Just a fascinated reader of psychology, who is exploring the field, with an opinion.
***************************************
***From a purely ethical standpoint – each of these researchers has conducted a fairly disturbing study in order to prove a theoretical point. Studies that greatly affected the participants and not always in a positive manner. Both Zimbardo and Milgram’s studies required a substantial amount of debriefing afterwards and both were cited by the ethics board. Zimbardo himself stated that his study should never be recreated and he regretted doing it on some level. Haslam and the BBC received an equal amount of criticism for theirs and the long-term negative effects on the unwitting participants.
The ethics of experimenting on human beings to see how they behave in certain situations is as questionable as the ethics of experimenting on animals, except of course in most of these situations humans can make an informed choice – well, how informed that choice truly is – is open to debate. One of the reasons I did not decide to pursue psychology in school was the ethical quandary. I could not for the life of me justify playing with someone else’s head in order to prove a theory. Even if that theory could help millions. Never been the sort to put the forest before the tree, I tend to care about the individual trees, which makes me a poor politician and scientist.
So to an extent, I fail to see that big a difference between Alex Haslam, Philip Zimbardo and the people at Abu Garhib – ethically all three hurt others for their own personal gain or knowledge – the only difference may be that Haslam and Zimbardo have acceptable justifications from a societal perspective. But are they acceptable, should they be? It is worth noting that of the two, Zimbardo did not appear to see his actions as completely justified and sought to redeem himself in his own eyes by canceling the study, attempting to use it for prison reform, and presenting his findings to others partly as a cautionary tale. Haslam on the other hand, appears to see very little ethically wrong with his study, and suggests it should be tried again.
Sources:
1.oursin original live journal post on the topic, November 1, 2005.
2. Sutherland, J (Oct. 31, 2005.)“The Ideas Interview: Alex Haslam: Abu Ghraib need not have happened and the Stanford prison experiment got it wrong.” The Guardian, Found at : http://education.guardian.co.uk/academicexperts
3. Social Economic And Organizational Research Group (SEORG) – “The Experiment – FAQ” – found at: http//:www.ex.ac.uk/Psychology/seorg/exp/faq.html
4. Aronson, E. The Social Animal 9th Ed. 2003 (pp. 8-9; pp. 222-223)
5. Zimbardo, P ( 1971, October 25). The psychological power and pathology of imprisonment (p.3). Statement prepared for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary; Subcommittee No. 3; Hearings on Prison Reform, San Francisco.
6. Gibson, JT & Haritos-Fatouros, M. (Nov. 1986) “The Education of a Torturer”, reprinted from Psychology Today (pp. 20, 50-58) in Readings in Social Psychology, General Classic and Contemporary Selections ed. Wayne A. Lesko, 5th Ed. 2003.
[*Oho..this is interesting. I just wrote a paper on a historical event from two perspectives as assigned by the class, but not exactly the way my professor wanted. Doesn’t matter, am auditing, not getting a grade, so do not need to turn it in. Plus somewhere between Law School and well now, I must have gotten fed up with writing papers based on someone else’s idea of how one should be written, within nice narrow lines and borders – course doesn’t help that I have a job that has narrow lines and borders. Or I’m just lazy. Take your pick. ]
oursin journal for this baby. It arose out of discussion with aycheb to be precise.]Zimbardo Prison Study vs. The BBC Experiment
Or
“Do situational influences determine behavior? Could we all prove to be sadists if placed in the right situation at the right time?”
*A question more than one fictional television drama has played around with, particularly those in the sci-fi/fantasy category.
Followers of the dramas: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek the Next Generation, The Twilight Zone, Dr. Who, Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, BattleStar Galatica (new series), and last but not least, Farscape – know whereof I speak. Think about it – how many times has science fiction writers asked the above question? In Buffy the Vampire Slayer – we had the Initiative, an underground military team organized and hand selected by a psychologist to conduct her own brand of social, behavioral and neurological psychology experiments on – she justified the torture and imprisonment of demons, including OZ for science. Riley and his buds, nice college boys, she turned into monsters through military obedience training – while Spike, a monster, she’s tames, renders almost harmless to anyone but demons, by taking him prisoner and giving him a chip. Farscape through its in depth exploration of the character – Scorpius, asks what makes a torturer – literally depicting all criteria stated in the paragraphs below by Milgram. Or in more than one episode of STNG, we have Riker exploring what it is like to be a prisoner in an asylum and Picard exploring both sides of the torture question – once as a victim, and once as the perpetuator – I Borg. Then there’s Angel – the title character who loves torturing his victims and despises himself for it, justifying his actions by stating that they had it coming. BattleStar Galatica and the treatment of the Cylon prisoners in disturbing and gritty detail – supporting in some respects the psychological view that if we dehumanize the prisoner, if they have no meaning to us, anything goes. Well enough on the television front, after all TV is nice and comfortable, distanced from us, particularly if placed in a science fiction or fantasy setting that we consciously know cannot be real – so how about a bit of reality?
In 2002, the BBC broadcast The Experiment, a psychological study similar to the infamous Zimbardo Prison Study conducted in 1970, except this round it was conceived partly as a reality TV show and partly as a psychological experiment.
Reality TV is in a way a social psychology experiment gone haywire, so is a good portion of the internet come to think of it, but let’s stick to the topic. In reality TV - you take a bunch of people from diverse backgrounds throw them into a group situation that contains precise controls and challenges, then see how they behave. The producers take steps to massage the situation in order to obtain the amount of melodrama that they feel is needed to produce ratings. The difference between a reality TV show and a scientific experiment is two-fold 1) the purpose – an experiment is about science, reality TV is about obtaining high ratings and attracting viewers, (arguably the BBC series was both – except that the funding came from the BBC and was controlled to a good extent by the BBC, a television network, concerned with ratings. While Zimbardo’s project was funded by Stanford University and other educational organizations and purely for scientific reasons. Never intended to be seen by a broad audience or for ratings.) 2) the series of scientific controls put into place to ensure that the data acquired is as accurate as possible. Reality TV suffice it to say does not have as many controls in place as pure experiment would. By its very nature, it has to exist outside the lab, and as a result is contaminated. The more people you involve in an experiment, the more likely it will be contaminated and data proven suspect. Not unlike the controls a biologist or chemist might put into place to ensure their experiment is not contaminated by outside forces. Sort of the difference, if you will, between performing a chemistry experiment over your stove and performing one in a sterile laboratory setting. Or performing a chemistry experiment as a demonstration in an auditorium with millions of cameras and an audience, and performing one in a sterile lab with just a few colleagues present.
Was The Experiment, conducted by psychologists Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, devised for ratings? Not according to the psychologists, who state quite clearly in an article printed in The Guardian on October 31, that “the aim was to test what had become received thinking on the subject , as formulated by the famous Stanford prison experiment, run by Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University California in 1971.”
Haslam argued with Zimbardo’s theory that behavior is situational, stating that personality and other factors such as politics play a role. According to Haslam behavior isn’t necessarily determined by the situation someone finds themselves in, rather that “people are capable of reflecting before acting;” people can in effect choose how to react to the situation and not necessarily be controlled by it. I take issue with Haslam’s interpretation of Zimbardo’s argument. From what I’ve read, which admittedly may be less than Haslam, but on the other hand I do not have an agenda like Haslam does – so may be more impartial - Zimbardo does not state that human behavior was predicated solely upon the situation nor is it determined solely by situation, but rather that situation plays a large role in determining how human beings will behave. We may be perfectly wonderful people in our day to day lives, but when we’re put into a specific situation behave horribly. Or vice versa – be horrible monsters in day to day life but behave beautifully or saintly if placed in the right situation. (An argument more than one person has proposed on line regarding certain character behaviors in TV shows.) Situation plays a tremendous role in how human beings behave according to Zimbardo, but it does not necessarily determine how they will behave.
In 1970, Philip Zimbardo, Craig Haney, and W. Curtis Banks sought to prove Zimbardo’s thesis by gathering a group of Stanford male university students to participate in a prison study in the basement of the Psychology Department at Stanford University. The volunteers were selected at random. Zimbardo flipped a coin to determine which students would be guards and which would be prisoners. Prior to the study all the students got along fairly well, there were no grudges, nor biases/prejudices amongst them. No one had an ax to grind and very few of them even knew one another. Each student came from a similar educational background.
Zimbardo assigned himself the role of Prison Superintendent. No one was given any training or told how to act, the study was not scripted and the participants did not know until they were rounded up, which role they would play. The students rounded up as guards were given night sticks and uniforms, while the students chosen as prisoners were rounded up by the local police, finger-printed, booked, and brought to the simulated cell block in the same manner as an actual prisoner. The guards made them remove their clothing, deloused them, gave them prison uniforms and put them in their cells.
The experiment itself lasted no more than 6 days. Hidden video cameras were used to tape the experiment for study. The participants were not aware they were on tape although they did know that they were participants in an experiment and not being forced to participate. None of the participants were named in the video tapes, their identities were protected. The two groups of students were found to be remarkably similar in their everyday lives, none of the students ever exhibited any negative behavior problems, psychosis, nor did they vary from other normal students. They were not psychology students.
None of the participants received any instruction, any specific training, nor was the experiment scripted. They were just given their roles and told to proceed as if they were guards and/or prisoners. *[Information taken from the following sources: E. Aronson, The Social Animal, p. 8-9, J.T. Gibson & M. Haritos-Fatouros, “The Education of A Torturer”, Readings in Social Psychology, ed. Wayne A. Lesko, 5th Ed., and Video Tape of the Zimbardo Prison Study.]
Within 6 days, Zimbardo and his colleagues chose to end the experiment, here is the reason Zimbardo gives:
“At the end of only six days we had to close down our mock prison because what we saw was frightening. It was no longer apparent to us or most of the subjects where they ended and their roles began. The majority had indeed become “prisoners” or “guards”, no longer able to clearly differentiate between role-playing and self. There were dramatic changes in virtually every aspect of their behavior, thinking and feeling. In less than a week, the experience of imprisonment undid (temporarily) a life-time of learning; human values were suspended, self-concepts were challenged, and the ugliest, most base, psychological side of human nature surfaced. We were horrified because we saw some boys (“guards”) treat other boys as if they were despicable animals, taking pleasure in cruelty, while other boys (“prisoners”) became servile, dehumanized robots who thought only of escape, of their own individual survival, and of their mounting hatred of guards.”* Zimbardo, P. (1971, October 25) The psychological power and pathology of imprisonment (p.3). Statement prepared for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary; Subcommittee No. 3: Hearings on Prison Reform, San Francisco.
What is Zimbardo talking about? When I watched the video I witnessed the following actions:
1. A prisoner chose to resist by fasting, one guard took satisfaction in motivating the other guards to torture this prisoner for his actions. They prodded other prisoners to repeatedly bang on the fasting prisoner’s door. Removed the fasting prisoner’s blanket and asked if any of the other prisoner’s were willing to help him by giving up theirs.
2. Conducted a humiliating sequence in which a prisoner was forced to walk like the bride of Frankenstein and kiss the fasting prisoner or prisoners who resisted. If he fell down or didn’t try hard enough, other prisoners were prodded to tease and make fun of him until he did it right – over and over. Nightsticks were used to beat him around the legs and hands.
The guards exhibited the following behavioral patterns: One was sadistic, one easy-going, and the third a disciplinarian. The prisoners themselves were either docile or resistant. What was astonishing was how quickly they took to their roles within such a short span of time.
Haslam’s study according to the article by Haslam and the FAQ’s [both can be found here: http://education.guardian.co.uk/academicexperts (look for October 31) & http://www.ex.ac.uk/Psychology/seorg/exp/faq.html] , the individuals chosen for the study came from all walks of life, were divided into guards and inmates somewhat randomly, and knew they were being taped for a television audience. Unlike Zimbardo’s study, these participants did not get to keep their anonymity. “The participants were aware of their surveillance by the TV cameras and that this affected their behavior.” Haslam states this is no different than any other psychological experiment – except that the majority of psychological experiments including Zimbardos are not released to people outside the field of study, are not televised to a huge audience of millions of viewers, and the participants themselves maintain a certain level of anonymity that Haslam admits was not maintained in his study. “Part of the problems stemmed from the difficulty of getting people to be fully aware of the consequences of being on television.” (ie. The reality show conundrum, where the ordinary person becomes a celebrity or known personage purely by playing themselves on a game show or TV show.)
Similar to Zimbardo’s study, the participants were unaware at the outset of what was going to happen to them – they did however know that 1) they would be entering a closed system in which there would be two groups, one with more power than the other and that the environment would be challenging and might involve hunger, hardship, anger and resemble a barracks, a prison or a boot camp. They were also aware that they could leave at any time. (It is unclear whether Zimbardo’s study contained that last point, but safe to assume it did.)
Another interesting factor – a few of the prisoners did know about Zimbardo’s study and had looked up the results. Interesting because in the video tape of the Zimbardo study, they revisit it ten years later and one of the participants states that if he had known what was involved he would have acted differently – in fact based on his knowledge of psychology and prison’s, he’s certain that the study would not have affected him the same way – that he would have had more control over the situation. Haslam states that the individuals in the Zimbardo Study should have had the same views against tyranny and the same belief that power corrupts that the current participants did.
Haslam also admits that his study uses a very different experimental design and operation than Zimbardos – it is based on Zimbardo’s but does not recreate it. (So Haslam sets out to test Zimbardo’s thesis but does not recreate Zimbardo’s study scientifically, merely creates a study loosely based on Zimbardo’s??) Also unlike Zimbardo’s study, Haslam did not set up a real prison or attempt to mirror what happens in prisons, setting himself up as Prison Superintendent, but rather was investigating the psychology of group inequality which is a separate issue from what Zimbardo was investigating. While the two studies are certainly comparable, I’m not sure Haslam can claim that his findings outweigh or contradict Zimbardo’s, so much as add texture to Zimbardo’s findings.
Other studies have been conducted that support Zimbardo’s view that individuals will become obedient if pressured by the group and do horrible things to others under group pressure, authority pressure, or situational pressure regardless of personality type. These studies include Stanley Milgram’s famous study where an individual is prodded by a scientific researcher to shock a volunteer into answering a series of questions correctly. (The volunteer isn’t really being shocked but the individual doing the shocking or pulling the triggers, believes that the volunteer is and believes that the scientific researcher accepts full responsibility – the individual is merely following orders.) Another similar study was conducted in a high school setting by Ronald Jones, the famous Third Wave movement (which I vaguely remember seeing a film of in high school). This was a classroom experiment were Jones demonstrated how high school students could have become followers of the Nazi’s in WWII regardless of their beliefs. He disciplined his students to answer questions by standing beside their desks and to begin each with “Mr. Jones”, then demanded they shout slogans, create a salute for class members only, and to report members who didn’t comply with rules. (The rules and guidelines remind me oddly enough of some sororities and fraternities as well as other secret organizations.) The membership in the Third Wave grew from 20 to a 100 students. At the end of the experiment – Jones pointed out to the students that they had bargained their freedom for the comfort of discipline. Yet another study, this one in reality, was conducted via interviews of former Greek military police who tortured political prisoners in 1967-1974. The people interviewed described how they were trained through a variety of measures that dictated obedience and conformity: 1) they were initially tortured themselves. 2) they were rewarded for torturing others, 3) they were punished for refusing to torture or obey, 4) their hostile views towards the prisoners were emphasized. (As an aside, I remember in 1988, being told by two men on leave from the military, that in the army you are taught to rigidly obey – even hazed and tortured and conditioned to do so, since the last thing you want is an army made up of individuals running every which way.) Stanley Milgram came up with the following three reasons for people to obey or disobey authority – which are cited by Janice T. Gibson and Mika Haritos-Fatouros in their study of Greek torturers:
1) Family or school history that encourages obedience and or defiance, 2) Binding influence: made up of on-going experiences that make people feel comfortable when they obey authority. 3) Strain – consists of bad feelings from unpleasant experiences connected with obedience, failure to obey.
Prior to being drafted into service, none of the Greek torturers had records of delinquent or disturbed behavior and all without exception were drafted. That said, the ones chosen were screened and selected for their physical strengths and “appropriate”’ political beliefs.
To some extent, this information supports Haslam’s theory : that what happened in Abu Gharib was the manifestation of one group’s way of thinking about another group – the demonization of the group. Or dehumanization. To a degree that’s true, but does not explain Milgram, Jones, nor Zimbardo’s findings which had little to do with politics or dehumanization. Zimbardo conducted yet another study – this one with women. “Female students were required to shock another student (not in reality, the student merely believed it was real), as part of a “study in empathy”. Some students were made anonymous; they were seated in a dimly lit room, dressed in loose-fitting robes and large hoods, and never referred to by name. Others were easily identifiable; their room was brightly lit, no robes or hoods were used, and each woman wore a name tag. As expected, those students were anonymous administered longer and more severe shocks.” Zimbardo came to the conclusion that a reduced concern over social evaluation – caused weakened restraints against prohibited behavior. What Janice T. Gibson and Mika Haritos-Fatouros found in their study of the Greek torturers was that “torturers have normal personalities. Any of us, in a similar situation, might be capable of the same cruelty.”
The studies above are persuasive evidence that human behavior can to a degree be greatly affected by situational influences as well as genetics, personality, and history. It also suggests that while we can evaluate our actions we may not always do so or be in a situation in which we can.
From my own experiences in prisons and in a variety of group situations, ranging from good to horrid, I can safely state that both Haslam and Zimbardo present valid arguments. In the early 1990s, I spent time counseling prisoners for the Kansas Defender Project in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. My clients ranged from a hit-man to a bank robber. I taught a class in the prison one evening with another student. And represented a prisoner at his parole hearing during a lock-down. A lock-down occurs when a prisoner acts out of bounds and injures another prisoner or guard. In this case there had been a series of knife fights the day before and two guards had been injured along with a prisoner. I observed at Leavenworth the same behavior patterns I saw in Zimbardo’s film. I also observed these same behavior patterns in prison games I saw people play as a child, in junior high, and in sororities and fraternities. I’ve seen similar types of behavior occur on discussion boards where a group will condemn someone and a series of punishments and rewards are allocated for acceptable behavior.
Based on my own experiences and the studies I’ve read and seen conducted, I think certain situations can create monsters or rather bring out the worst in us. And I do believe how relate to one another is to a large degree situational. It’s easy to judge the behavior of others, even ourselves, at a safe distance from the situation, removed from its influence, but not so easy to see what will happen or what you will do inside of it. Zimbardo used his study to attempt to obtain prison reform. He felt that there were certain attributes that a prison situation brought out in human beings that should be avoided at all costs. Was he right? Haslam’s study appears to say no, but then again maybe not. Haslam readily admits his study was not meant to reproduce a realistic prison setting, nor was it as intense as Zimbardo’s study, yet the study was discontinued and the BBC decided not to make it continuing reality series as it may have originally intended. The evidence at least from my rather limited perspective tends to support Zimbardo, but that comes with the disclaimer that I am not a psychologist nor do I pretend to be. Just a fascinated reader of psychology, who is exploring the field, with an opinion.
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***From a purely ethical standpoint – each of these researchers has conducted a fairly disturbing study in order to prove a theoretical point. Studies that greatly affected the participants and not always in a positive manner. Both Zimbardo and Milgram’s studies required a substantial amount of debriefing afterwards and both were cited by the ethics board. Zimbardo himself stated that his study should never be recreated and he regretted doing it on some level. Haslam and the BBC received an equal amount of criticism for theirs and the long-term negative effects on the unwitting participants.
The ethics of experimenting on human beings to see how they behave in certain situations is as questionable as the ethics of experimenting on animals, except of course in most of these situations humans can make an informed choice – well, how informed that choice truly is – is open to debate. One of the reasons I did not decide to pursue psychology in school was the ethical quandary. I could not for the life of me justify playing with someone else’s head in order to prove a theory. Even if that theory could help millions. Never been the sort to put the forest before the tree, I tend to care about the individual trees, which makes me a poor politician and scientist.
So to an extent, I fail to see that big a difference between Alex Haslam, Philip Zimbardo and the people at Abu Garhib – ethically all three hurt others for their own personal gain or knowledge – the only difference may be that Haslam and Zimbardo have acceptable justifications from a societal perspective. But are they acceptable, should they be? It is worth noting that of the two, Zimbardo did not appear to see his actions as completely justified and sought to redeem himself in his own eyes by canceling the study, attempting to use it for prison reform, and presenting his findings to others partly as a cautionary tale. Haslam on the other hand, appears to see very little ethically wrong with his study, and suggests it should be tried again.
Sources:
1.
oursin original live journal post on the topic, November 1, 2005. 2. Sutherland, J (Oct. 31, 2005.)“The Ideas Interview: Alex Haslam: Abu Ghraib need not have happened and the Stanford prison experiment got it wrong.” The Guardian, Found at : http://education.guardian.co.uk/academicexperts
3. Social Economic And Organizational Research Group (SEORG) – “The Experiment – FAQ” – found at: http//:www.ex.ac.uk/Psychology/seorg/exp/faq.html
4. Aronson, E. The Social Animal 9th Ed. 2003 (pp. 8-9; pp. 222-223)
5. Zimbardo, P ( 1971, October 25). The psychological power and pathology of imprisonment (p.3). Statement prepared for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary; Subcommittee No. 3; Hearings on Prison Reform, San Francisco.
6. Gibson, JT & Haritos-Fatouros, M. (Nov. 1986) “The Education of a Torturer”, reprinted from Psychology Today (pp. 20, 50-58) in Readings in Social Psychology, General Classic and Contemporary Selections ed. Wayne A. Lesko, 5th Ed. 2003.
[*Oho..this is interesting. I just wrote a paper on a historical event from two perspectives as assigned by the class, but not exactly the way my professor wanted. Doesn’t matter, am auditing, not getting a grade, so do not need to turn it in. Plus somewhere between Law School and well now, I must have gotten fed up with writing papers based on someone else’s idea of how one should be written, within nice narrow lines and borders – course doesn’t help that I have a job that has narrow lines and borders. Or I’m just lazy. Take your pick. ]
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Date: 2005-11-05 12:36 pm (UTC)