The Prison Experiment

ThePrisonExperiment refers to the StanfordPrisonExperiment conducted to provide insights in a few areas, including whether "roles shape behavior".

The test was suggested to be related to another test done in early 60s, called the Milgram Experiment. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment for more.

ThePrisoners in the experiment were very quickly subjected to humiliation, abuse and led to early termination of ThePrisonExperiment as situations became dangerous.

In early 2002 there was a German film titled "DasExperiment", and around the same time another similar study was conducted by sponsorship of BBC and led by Haslam and Reicher.

The study, and subsequent analysis over the decades, are of current interest due to the events revealed by Abu Ghraib. An unanswered question was, "how far up does the responsibility go"?

The two are not equivalent. ThePrisonExperiment was simply the CorporateStockholmSyndrome in miniature. The torture, murder, and rape at Abu Ghraib is official US government policy.

ThePrisonExperiment conducted by Haslam et al has different outcomes where the guards are the ones that felt intimidated. No doubt the outcome from the first experiment has influence on the latter.

CategoryPsychology