www.thornwalker.com/ditch/dtw_fallapart_3_side.htm

Sidebar to
"Things fall apart,"
part three
 
May 20, 2004
 

The Stanford Prison Experiment
 

By DAVID T. WRIGHT

 
In 1971, a psychology professor at Stanford began what eventually became notorious as the "Stanford Prison Experiment." He took a volunteer group of young male university students, randomly divided them into "prisoners" and "guards," and set up a mock prison in a building on campus for what was supposed to be a two-week period.

The results were astonishing. The "guards," of course, knew that they and the "prisoners" were all part of an experiment. Nevertheless, most of the "guards" soon began to mistreat their charges: threatening them, harassing them, yelling at them, making them do calisthenics, and so on. The situation even affected the psychologists directing the experiment: they also began to regard the "prisoners" as criminals. When they heard that the "prisoners" were planning to escape, they actually tried to have them installed in a real jail to prevent it!

Some of the "prisoners" had to be released within a few days because they broke down under the strain. The other "prisoners" suffered anomie and depression, which worsened every day. The experiment was terminated after only five days, when an outsider observed the experiment and became outraged at their treatment.

The implications of the experiment are very disquieting. Ordinary people are not only likely to become tyrants when given power over others but are also liable to cease regarding those under them as people at all, seeing them instead as objects to be manipulated and mistreated at will. The effect on the victims is devastating.

Even so, it should be pointed out that the "guards" did not kill any "prisoners," nor did they actually torture them or abuse them sexually.

The official Stanford Prison Experiment Website is at www.prisonexp.org/index.html.

© 2004 WTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.

 
Back to where you were
in part three
of "Things fall apart."

If you found this article to be interesting, please donate to our cause. You should make your check or m.o. payable in U.S. dollars to WTM Enterprises and send it to:

WTM Enterprises
P.O. Box 224
Roanoke, IN 46783

Thanks for helping to assure a future for TLD!

Notice to visitors who came straight to this document from off site: You are deep in The Last Ditch. You should check out our home page and table of contents.