Video of the Stanford Prison Experiment

Posted by TheGoodReverend in Everything Else on July 17, 2007 at 12:05 pm


Alex blogged a Mental Floss post a few weeks ago that mentioned Philip Zimbardo’s infamous early-seventies Stanford Prison Experiment, where students acting as prisoners and guards took their roles to psychologically damaging heights, punishing and rebelling against one another. This old documentary features actual footage from the “jail” in the basement of the psychology building. Is it fascinating, bizarre, funny, horrifying, or all of the above?

Punish the play button or go to YouTube


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7 comments to "Video of the Stanford Prison Experiment"

  1. garbonzo
    July 17th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    I wonder whatever happened to these guys. Did they grow up to be "pillars of society" or were they scarred as a result of this.

  2. Alex
    July 17th, 2007 at 6:07 pm

    I wonder how many went into the prison security business!

  3. Ali S.
    July 17th, 2007 at 7:19 pm

    I think the best quote that can easily sum up the experiment and it's outcome is:

    "Nearly all men can stand adversity, if you want to test a man's character give him power." By Abraham Lincoln.

    I'm sure the Guards ended up being outstanding citizens. Yeah right.

  4. Jess
    July 17th, 2007 at 9:12 pm

    One of the prisoners in the experiment who pretended he was insane to leave early ended up becoming so interested in psychology afterwards that he began studying psychology at uni and is now a prison psychologist!

  5. Audrey
    July 17th, 2007 at 9:21 pm

    I'm a psychology major and this experiment is one of my favorites despite it's incredibly unethical nature. Watching Zimbardo host Discovering Psychology made me want to be a psychologist!

  6. George
    July 18th, 2007 at 2:51 am

    This experiment is useless as far as application of observed data. So is psychology and psychiatry for that matter neither of which has helped mankind.

    It is interesting to see how people love to play a game; no matter how debased and degraded that game is - in this case prisoner and prison guard.

  7. Alex
    July 18th, 2007 at 10:15 am

    This experiment is useless as far as application of observed data.

    This statement describes a lot of physics and mathematics.


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