Critique Paper about the “The Stanford Prison Experiment of 1973,” conducted by Dr.

Philip
George Zimbardo

Introduction:

The infamous psychological experiment which was conducted in August 14, 1971 by Dr. Philip
G. Zimbardo entitled, “Stanford Prison Experiment of 1973,‖ at Palo Alto, California, aimed at 24
young college men who volunteered to be a subject of the study, recreating life in a correctional
facility. The experiment was conducted in 1971, where there have recently been many news
reports about brutality of prison guards and various riots. This sparked the interests of Zimbardo
and his colleagues (1973) in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in
American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards (dispositional) or had more
to do with the prison environment (situational).It all begins in the study on the Psychology of
prison life, led by Stanford Psychology professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo where 24 volunteers are
grouped into 12 prisoners and 12 guards randomly. The subjects are asked to stripped nude,
forced to wear smocks and stocking caps with shackles. The subjects are also identified only by
their prisoner numbers throughout their whole stay. The assigned guards are given anonymity
by their mirrored sunglasses, some of them, as the tension rises, started to do their cruel
methods such as controlling the meager food rations, restrict prisoners‘ bathroom use, inflict
verbal, mental, emotional and sexual abuse as they immerse themselves in their roles. In just a
span of six days in a plan of 2-week study, the conditions have reached an unprecedented
extreme that the entire operation is completely terminated. The study makes international
headlines and various critiques questioning how unethical it is considering the brutality inflicted
to mere young men. The study brings up questions just as important then as it is today, what
sufficient conditions might be to make anyone do something evil? As Zimbardo‘s fame
skyrocketed and his conclusions are taught to students worldwide, the study failed to support its
reliability and validity considering the lack of its replication due to ethical concerns.

Body:

As for the start, Zimbardo and his colleagues‘ participants interviews were baseless as they
used coin to flip who‘s going to be the guard or prisoner. The said role was uncorrelated to the
participants‘ qualifications and knowledge. Surely the experiment was unethical because it was
lacked of inform consent to the participants. Physical punishments, violence, humiliation were
present, some participants were harmed and they were not treated fairly. Lack of protection
from psychological and physical harm, experiment was unpredictable. Above
implications could not be predetermined. As for the start of the study, 75 applicants who applied
upon seeing the ad in a local newspaper, were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests
to eliminate candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or
drug abuse, leaving the most physically & mentally stable, the most mature, & the least involved
in antisocial behaviors. A coin flip was used to determine who‘s going to be the guard or the
prisoner, this leads to questions regarding the baselessness of Zimbardo and his colleagues‘
participants since the said role were uncorrelated to the subjects‘ qualification and personality.

The methodology used in this experiment is not anchored from a scientific method. We also
can‘t overlook the fact that the participants are meticulously selected, with that being said, it
makes it almost impossible for replication for the rest of the society. Therefore, it lacks
generalizability. This experiment is tragically undefined. Neither the dependent and independent
variables, nor hypotheses or theoretical frameworks were defined. We also do not know to
whom or to what the participants‘ behavior should be compared since there is no presence of
control group either. With our current standards, a study with such deficiencies would not be a
successful one. A thorough methodological criticism was published in a peer-reviewed scientific
journal in 1975 (Banuazizi, Movahedi 1975). In order to see the shortcomings of the research for
oneself, it is enough to read an academic methodology textbook and see what are the
requirements for a psychological experiment.(e.g. Brzezinski, 1996). Zimbardo (2008) later
noted, ―It wasn't until much later that I realized how far into my prison role I was at that point --
that I was thinking like a prison superintendent rather than a research psychologist.― As if the
experiment was supposed to ‗demonstrate that. ‘ rather than ‗answer the question if. . . ‘ It is a
fundamentally unscientific approach.

Also, the extreme behaviors of the participants –which is the main examples- were faked and
has an obvious influence of what the psychologists call the demand characteristics. It occurs
whenever a participants being studied act differently than they would normally would because
they‘ve guessed what hypothesis is being tested and feel that a certain kind of behavior is being
demanded. Let‘s take the case of Douglas Gordi as an example, the notorious prisoner no.
8612. His hysterical nervous breakdown served as a remarkable illustration of one‘s mental
suffering in an institution that drives people to insanity even if it is only staged. It went down on
history. According to Ben Blum, a known critic of Zimbardo, however, it turned out that Gordi
had been bluffing. He faked the nervous breakdown because he did not have access to books
he needed for studying for an exam. He did not know any other way to opt out of the experiment
so he chose to simulate a bad mental condition taking advantage of what he learned on his
acting classes. What kind of evidence does Blum provide in this case? A statement of Douglas
Gordi (Blum, 2018). And on what premises Gordi‘s behavior had been previously judged as
authentic? A statement of Douglas Gordi.

If somebody issues contradictory statements on a given subject, how can we know when they
are telling the truth, and when they are lying? Moreover, in the wake of discoveries of cognitive
psychology, it is also possible to be in a state where we are not able to honestly report the
motivation of our actions or faithfully recall events in which we participated (e.g. Lilienfeld et al.,
2011, Chapter 3).

David Eschelman, the infamous, most sadistic and aggressive of the guards, nicknamed
‗Hellman‘ by the prisoners and ‗John Wayne‘ by the SPE researchers because of his Southern
accent and a tough guy pose is a figure accused of acting too. According to Blum, he was only
pretending, just like Gordi. Namely, he faked the Southern accent (he had never even been to
the South of the U.S.) and modeled his whole personality on the prison superintendent from the
film, Cold Hand Luke. Eshelman‘s statement also serves as evidence here. This time though,
there is no doubt that his claim is credible. Eshelman, unlike Gordi, never changed his version –
he has been repeating it at least since 2004. On the other hand, it is hard to concede that the
results of the research are less credible only because David Eshelman faked somebody‘s
accent or other behavior. After all, he being in his role did not ‗fake‘ ordering the prisoners to act
out copulation – he really did give such an order, and the prisoners obeyed regardless. The
same case was with other punishments and orders. Just because he uses a different mask to
immerse himself on his job, does not undermine the research conclusions

Also, there was a tangible recording of explicitly briefing a guard who wasn‘t being tough
enough. Therefore, the pressure exerted by Zimbardo and his team on the prison guards,
allegedly modified their behavior, or even constituted its main cause. The evidences can be
found in the research archives of the open-access Stanford library. So, if they did not come up
with this aggression by themselves, it means that but the central instructions turned most of the
guards into real villains, not the mythical ‗situation‘. But there is a two problems here, first, it is
impossible to impartially interpret this situation as ‗coaching to act aggressively’, since Dr. Philip
explained that the guard left the area where he was supposed to be, he was not helping his
colleagues in the ascribed duties. There is an essential difference between instructions
encouraging violence and instructions encouraging decisiveness, firmness and engagement.

There are also a number of moral and ethical concerns regarding the lack of informed consents
from the participants, physical punishments that have gone overboard, violence, abuse,
humiliation were present, and there are some participants who were harmed that may lead to
life long trauma. Lack of protection from psychological and physical harm, experiment
was not guaranteed. Since the cited implications above could not be predetermined. The
repercussions and side effects are not only experienced by the prisoners, but also the guards
who themselves admitted that they were surprised how well they exhibited the genuine sadistic
tendencies that they acquired on their role. The standards established by numerous ethical
codes were not met by this study, therefore breaking all the scientific principles of an
experiment, including the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association.

There was a related famous study about obedience conducted by Stanley Milgram, a
psychologist at Yale University. The experiment was mainly focusing on the conflict between
obedience to personal conscience and authority. His main aim was to understand whether
Germans were particularly obedient (da Costa et al., 2021). The experiment is considered
unethical because the people who were the participants were led to believe that they were
administering a shock to real people. The individuals were unaware the learners were
individuals associated with Milligram. Importantly, Milgram stated that deception was essential
to get the desired results from the experiment (Alexandre & David, 2018). Moreover, another
ethical issue about the investigation was the protection of the individuals involved. In the study
process, the participants are believed to have endured psychological impairment (Grzyb &
Dolinski, 2017). People were worried about the harm the experiment will have to fellow
participants. Consequently, another ethical issue about the study was the withdrawal right—the
participants were discouraged from withdrawing. The biggest takeaway from Milgram's
experiment is how obedient the vast majority of people are to those in authority— which can
also serve as a basis on why and how submissive other prisoners are to the guards in Dr.
Philip‘s experiment, facing almost the same ethical concerns.

Also, there is plenty of evidence that the researchers let their expectations shape the results.
Zimbardo and his team wanted to lead to a prison reform because they were deeply convinced
that existing system elicited the worst features of a human being and was not serving the
societal goals. As intended, the results were used as arguments in a political discussion (cf.
Blum, 2018)

If there is another way to replicate this study, probably the best approach to make it more ethical
is to eliminate as best as possible the demand characteristics by eliminating that prisoner /
guard dynamic. But still incorporating the main three elements that were assumed to be
influential in the study namely, Depersonalization, Anonymity, and Power differences.The
purpose of the experiment is also needed to be hidden. The researchers should also consider
different factors like the role of personality and personality traits. Since the original ad in the
Stanford study asked for participants for a study of prison life, that‘s going to draw certain
people that were more kind of disposed to aggression. So when you get a group of kind of
authoritarian minded individuals together, not surprisingly they‘re going to create an
authoritarian regime and environment.
Conclusion:

Despite the faults in Zimbardo‘s research, and the flaws in the experiment call into question
large portions of the narrative surrounding the study, we should still rationally assess the
criticism; evaluation of the experiment and its original conclusions is not the same as evaluation
of common, simplified interpretations.

As conscious recipients of knowledge, let us avoid the subjective, quick ‗for or against‘
assessments, examine the quality of arguments and accept the complex image of reality. In a
nutshell, the main points that we have gained in this paper is that this famous and controversial
study stands still as a fascinating spur to further more careful research as a demonstration that
should make anyone curious as to how such extreme behavior could arise in such a short time.
How people are quick to be cruel if an authority figure suggests that doing so will serve a
greater cause, like science. Thus, the experiment could still be useful, but it might need to be
reinterpreted and replicated with a more ethical approach. Its data might lead to different
conclusions than the one that we‘ve been telling for so many decades.

References:

 Banuazizi, A., Movahedi, S. (1975). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison: A

methodological analysis. American Psychologist, 30(2), 152–160.
https://doi.org/10.1037/h0076835
 Bhattacharjee, Y. (2013). Diederik Stapel‘s Audacious Academic Fraud. [online]
Nytimes.com. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com
 Blum, B. (2017). Ranger games: A story of soldiers, family, and an inexplicable crime.
New York: Doubleday.
 Blum, B. (2018, July 6). The Lifespan of a Lie. Retrieved from Medium website:
https://medium.com
 Brzezinski, J. (2012). Metodologia bada ´ n psychologicznych [eng. Methodology of
psychological research]. ´ Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN
 Alvarez, K. P. (2015). The Stanford Prison Experiment. IFC Films.