Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment

Zimbardo’s classic Stanford Prison Study will be thrust back into the spotlight this weekend with the release of a film based on the experiment, aptly titled The Stanford Prison Experiment. I had the opportunity to attend an early screening of the film this week. The screening, hosted by Psychology Today, included a panel discussion with Philip Zimbardo, and the director and actors of the film, who took the time to reflect on the significance of this study more than 40 years after it was done, and the challenges that came with bringing it to the big screen.

Of course, for social psychologists, the Zimbardo study is part of a trifecta of studies—including the Asch and Milgram experiments—that serve as significant reflections of conformity, destructive obedience, and the power of the social situation to trump or overtake individual disposition when trying to understand behavior. Forty years after Zimbardo’s landmark study, the results still resonate when we look at the role that institutions and the social situation plays in shaping human behavior.

Given the extensive footage of the original study that is available online, the many documentaries that have been done about the experiment, and Zimbardo’s Lucifer Effect published several years ago that revisits the study, one might wonder, what would a dramatic film have to add to this story? The director of the film, Kyle Patrick Alvarez, was asked this very question at the event I attended, and his response was that he was less interested in the academics behind the study (in large part because that has been covered extensively by other sources) and more interested in the emotional impact the study had for all individuals involved (including Zimbardo and his research team).

From this perspective, the film does bring something new to the study. Based on the trailer, I was concerned that the film would not be true to the experiment—or in fact would wildly embellish what took place in the Stanford basement so many years ago—but for those of you familiar with transcripts or the real footage from the study, the screenplay is consistent with the original footage, oftentimes reflected in dialogue identical to the transcripts from the study. To Zimbardo’s credit, his character—handled expertly by Billy Crudup—is not portrayed in the most favorable light.

The dual role that Zimbardo assigned himself for the study (both head investigator and prison superintendent) was clearly a conflict of interest and resonates in Crudup’s portrayal on screen. Indeed, as Zimbardo became immersed in how quickly the participants took on the roles they were assigned, his scientific zeal and position as the head of the prison quickly overtook any ethical concerns regarding how the prisoners were being degraded and abused by the guards. The film’s depiction of him doesn’t hide from this reality, and shows multiple opportunities during the course of the study when Zimbardo was presented with whether or not he should enable a distressed participant to exit the experiment or end the study all together—and chose not to for the sake of maintaining the study and the conditions of the simulated prison.

In retrospect, Zimbardo has been very blunt that he, too, was overwhelmed by the dual roles he played, and should have ended the study even earlier than the six days it ultimately would take him to terminate the experiment (the study was originally conceived to be a two-week experiment). The film does an excellent job in tracing how rapidly all parties involved in the experiment—from its architect to the randomly assigned guards and prisoners, to consultants and the rest of the research team—became immersed in their social roles, losing sight of their personal identities, a process referred to as deindividuation.

For those of you familiar with this experiment, the film certainly revisits a lot of familiar themes. However, it also explores the emotional side of the experience from all parties involved, and offers a dramatic—and engrossing—dramatization of the study that reignites many of the questions regarding the human capacity for evil, particularly among ordinary people.

For those who have not been immersed in the study, this film marks a significant way of being exposed to a critical social psychological study outside of academia, that manages to be provocative, insightful, and even, yes, entertaining. I strongly recommend seeing the film this weekend, and taking the opportunity to ask yourself what many social psychology students do when confronted with these types of studies: what would you have done if put in the same situation?

Copyright 2015 Azadeh Aalai

Visit the official trailer for The Stanford Prison Experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XN2X72jrFk

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