by Davi Barker
The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted in 1971 by Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo to study the psychological effects of being in a prison environment. It was funded by the US Office of Naval Research in hopes of discovering the cause of conflict between military guards and prisoners. They aimed to determine whether it was the personality of the prisoners and guards, or the environment itself that was the chief cause of abusive behavior in prison.
Seventy male students were screened and the twenty-four most stable and psychologically healthy were selected as participants. They were intentionally excluded if they had a criminal background, or a history of mental problems. Then subjects were randomly assigned to the role of “prisoner” or “guard” to live in a two-week-long prison simulation in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Zimbardo acted as prison superintendent, and his undergraduate research assistant took on the role of warden. The experiment was designed to disorient, depersonalize and deindividualize the participants.
Certain portions of the experiment were filmed and are publicly available. In his book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, Zimbardo details his findings and how they relate to the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
An orientation session was held for the “guards” before the experiment. They were instructed to keep a fixed schedule, and to attempt to make the “prisoners” feel powerless, and even to some degree afraid. The “guards” were to create a sense of arbitrariness to the system, and to take away the “prisoners” individuality. The “guards” were given uniforms from the local military surplus store, mirrored glasses to prevent eye contact, and wooden batons meant only to establish status. There were instructed to be creative, but not to physically harm the “prisoners.”
The “prisoners” were arrested from their homes by the Palo Alto police department. They were given fictional armed robbery charges, and taken through the full booking procedures, including mug shots and fingerprinting. The “prisoners” were handcuffed, chained around the ankles and delivered to the mock prison, where they were strip searched, dressed in ill-fitting smocks and stocking caps, and issued prisoner numbers. From then on they were addressed only by their assigned numbers.
Both “prisoners” and “guards” adapted to their new roles far beyond Zimbardo's expectations. “Guards” began to display cruel, even sadistic behavior, while “prisoners” quickly developed submissive attitudes, passively accepting physical and psychological abuse, and even readily following orders from the “guards” to inflict punishments on each other.
On the second day “prisoners” used their beds to barricade their cell door, and “guards” subduing them with fire extinguishers. The “prisoners” also engaged in a brief hunger strike. In response, the “guards” devised punishments for them such as exercise drills, depriving them of bedding, forcing them to go nude, locking them in “solitary confinement” in a dark storage closet, and forcing “prisoners” to urinate and defecate in a bucket placed in their cell. Guards became increasingly sadistic as the experiment continued, and one “prisoner” began showing signs of mental breakdown after only 36 hours.
The “prisoners” also engaged in horizontal discipline to keep each other in line, even without prompting from the “guards.” As Zimbardo explained, both “prisoners” and “guards” had fully internalized their fictional identities. In the end only two “prisoners” quit the experiment early, even though they were all made aware that they could stop at any time.
The levels of cruelty witnessed in the experiment were so severe that it was halted after only six days. Zimbardo says in his book that it should have been halted sooner but his own judgment had been compromised by internalizing his “prison superintendent” identity. The experiment worked too well, and Zimbardo began to prioritize the continuation of the prison over the ethics of the experiment, allowing abuse to continue that could be considered torture. Most of the “guards” expressed disappointment when the experiment concluded early, while the “prisoners” expressed guilt for crimes they never committed. Zimbardo writes of his own feelings of guilt, which kept him from publishing the full findings of the experiment for over 30 years.
What is clear from both the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment is that abuse of authority, and obedience to corrupt authority seem to be caused by the situation more than a result of their individual personalities.
Ron Paul and the Lucifer Effect
The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo goes beyond his analysis of the Stanford Prison Experiment. It includes an in depth study of mankind’s capacity for evil, including numerous similar studies on obedience and the corrupting influence of authority. It ends with the atrocities committed by US soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But as I was reading, I kept thinking about Ron Paul, and the ongoing controversy in the liberty movement as to whether supporting political candidates, or taking direct action is the better strategy. Obviously Ron Paul is no longer involved in politics, but even though I supported him at the time, in hindsight I’m glad he didn’t win. And even if Ron Paul is not the candidate best represents your preferences, the question remains whether or not any candidate can ever avoid being corrupted by being given authority.
At first I was skeptical of Zimbardo’s analysis because he was serving as an expert witness for a team of defense lawyers representing Abu Ghraib prison guard, Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick, at his court martial. But his thesis is redeemed somewhat by acknowledging that those obeying authority are still fully morally culpable for their actions. His intention was to show that systemic forces, what he calls “situational power” can transform otherwise conscientious people into authoritarian sociopaths. In the last part of the book he conducts a mock trial, prosecuting the entire command structure of the US military, which made the inhumane treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib possible, even predictable. The line between collective guilt and individual guilt gets a little muddy, which makes interpreting it a little sticky, but incredibly valuable. Applied consistently Zimbardo’s conclusions about the corrupting influence of authority should apply as readily to the US Military as to any other coercive hierarchy, especially the executive.
In 2004 photographs of the torture and abuse taking place in Abu Ghraib hit the American media. Naked prisoners stacked in human pyramids, forced to simulate oral sex on each other, and a hooded man balanced on a cardboard box with electric wires attached to his fingers that has become the iconic image of the scandal. One guard sodomized a male prisoner with a flashlight, and another raped a female detainee. In many photographs a soldier is smiling approvingly for the camera. The photos were kept by the soldiers as trophies. The world stood in a shock and horror as the evils of Abu Ghraib came to light, and many cried “how did this happen?!” But Zimbardo already knew, because he had seen it before in his own experiment. As an expert witness Zimbardo was granted full access to all investigative and background reports related to the case, and it was witnessing the cruelty at Abu Ghraib which convinced him it was time to publish the full results of the Stanford Prison Experiment.
Zimbardo was dismayed by the instant refrain of Military and government representatives that these soldiers were ‘just a few bad apples.’ Zimbardo insists that their behavior was the result of systemic forces from “an entire bad barrel.” Abu Ghraib had been used by Saddam Hussein for public executions, and when it was taken over by the US Military very little changed. The name was kept the same specifically because it elicited such terror for the Iraqi people. The most striking evidence he presents of systemic evil in the military ranks were the findings of The Schlesinger Report, which was an independent panel to review Department of Defense detention operations. The report includes documented discussions of high ranking military personnel about the Stanford Prison Experiment itself, implying they didn’t have to give orders to torture because the research indicated the situation itself would produce torture.
The officers in charge of Abu Ghraib had no previous experience running a prison, just like in Stanford. The soldiers charged with ‘maltreating detainees’ had no previous record of antisocial or inhuman behavior (unless you count enlisting), just like in Stanford. And even though they repeatedly asked their superiors for instructions and standard operating procedures they were given none, and told only to maintain routine operations and to be creative… just like in Stanford.
What’s really disturbing about this is that scientific research that had been conducted to prevent abuse was instead used by those in power to orchestrate situations where they could have confidence torture would occur without explicit orders, providing them plausible deniability.
So, why do I say this has ramifications for electoral politics? I’ve come a long way for a pretty incredulous punch line. But here it is. Let me start by saying that I love Ron Paul like family. No seriously. If he needed bone marrow, and I was the only match I’d give it to him. My conundrum has been that even though I have philosophically accepted that the electoral process is corrupt, when Ron Paul ran for office I still thought about voting for him. If it were a simple race between the Republican warmonger and the Democrat warmonger not voting would be easy, but when principled peace candidates step in the ring it challenges my integrity.
What Zimbardo has shown is that all of us, given the right circumstances, are capable of monstrous acts. So, why would I want to put a loved one in those circumstances? People sometimes call America “The Great Experiment,” but in reality it’s just another prison experiment. The only difference is we elect our prison guards. If Zimbardo’s thesis is correct it doesn’t matter whether the prison guards are elected, appointed or selected at random. We often mistakenly think that evil people are attracted to power, but that’s not what the research suggests. The studies show that power turns otherwise virtuous people evil. Even Zimbardo, a psychology professor whose life’s work has been opposing evil, was taken in by it when the systemic forces called for it. Viewed through this lens it’s entirely possible the ambitious promises of presidential candidates are made in earnest, but their priorities are changed by the office they hold. And I see no indication that this wouldn’t happen to Ron Paul, or any other candidate. Even Paul played the earmark game with spending bills in Congress. That’s not a condemnation of Paul. It’s a condemnation of the office. It’s a condemnation of power.
In the end I realized that I can only support a political candidate if I dehumanize them, and think of them as a fictional character in a crappy game show. If I met with Ron Paul face to face, heart to heart, as equal human beings, I would advise him to return to medicine, or seek some other productive work. I’d like to see Ron Paul publish a tell-all book cataloguing all the dirt he saw in office, but was too much of a statesman to expose. Anything but taking power over others. Because I don’t want a good man to run the prison. I want to abolish the prison system.
Up next: existing lesser-known psychological studies on power, honesty, compassion, and ethics.
