Assessment of Stanford Jail Experiment documentary (opinion)

The Stanford Jail Experiment: Unlocking the Fact—a restricted sequence that simply premiered on the Nationwide Geographic channel and is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu—represents a minimum of the sixth time the occasions of 1971 have been portrayed at size onscreen, whether or not in documentary format or as quasi-fictional drama. How may anybody squeeze nearly three hours’ value of video narrative out of such totally lined occasions? I sat down to look at the preview screener ready to hit fast-forward, as needed.

In truth, it by no means was. The sequence is artfully constructed and eminently bingeable. Its narrative arc passes by extra layers of context than even somebody conscious of the related historical past is more likely to see coming.

Many readers of this column (maybe most) already know one thing concerning the experiment itself, with its well-nigh legendary use of undergraduates as guinea pigs within the days earlier than institutional evaluate boards stored an eye fixed on such issues.

However anybody drawing a clean can see from this 10-minute video why the experiment has lengthy been a staple of introductory psychology textbooks. It was provocative—and nonetheless is, although for various causes now.

The professor who carried out the experiment, Philip Zimbardo (1933–2024), all the time offered its design and findings as pretty clear reduce. The guards and prisoners had been chosen at random from the identical, apparently homogeneous pool of individuals (i.e., younger, white, male Stanford college students with out felony histories and judged to be in good psychological well being).

When their interactions rapidly devolved into sadism and riot, the decisive issue was not racial rigidity—or some psychological trait shared by both group—however, moderately, the simulated jail surroundings itself.

The occasions at Stanford performed out simply weeks earlier than the Attica jail riot. Newspaper and tv reporters who had paid scant consideration to Zimbardo’s preliminary press releases all of a sudden discovered their curiosity piqued. The supply of six hours of movie footage shot through the experiment was a windfall for media publicity. And the experiment’s influence is troublesome to separate from its telegenic facets.

On the Nationwide Geographic program, a parade of video clips throughout the a long time present that Zimbardo was the best talk-show visitor: earnest however personable and keen to elide inconvenient particulars within the curiosity of a putting narrative.

Early accounts reported that the guards’ attitudes towards the inmates ranged from friendliness to aggressive contempt.

However in the middle of repeated media appearances, Zimbardo got here to deal with the jail situations’ influence as uniform and inescapable: All of the guards turned domineering, a minimum of within the publicity-friendly model.

And certainly, probably the most hostile and bullying guards do set the tone of the footage shot through the experiment—particularly the guard nicknamed John Wayne by his friends, who assumes the alpha place with gusto. However in a current interview, one of many much less enthusiastic guards describes being taken apart by Zimbardo and inspired to take part with extra vigor.

Likewise, the alpha guard recollects Zimbardo encouraging him to imagine management. He had a background in theater and noticed himself as enjoying a personality—one impressed by the jail film Cool Hand Luke.

The individuals interviewed for the documentary agree that Zimbardo held sure expectations about what would occur. He was important of jail as an establishment, as had been a few of the experimental topics.

Zimbardo might not have anticipated issues to escalate so quickly, however the general trajectory was a lot as anticipated. A press launch issued shortly after the experiment began already referred to “reforms wanted at a psychological stage so that males who commit crimes usually are not made into dehumanized objects by their jail expertise …” That the guards themselves felt dehumanized by the proceedings comes by in interviews.

In 2019, the French scholar Thibault Le Texier revealed a paper within the American Psychological Affiliation’s flagship journal below the title “Debunking the Stanford Experiment,” drawing on archival sources and interviews with 15 of the experiment’s 24 topics. It summarized the findings of a monograph he had revealed the yr earlier than, now out in translation as Investigating the Stanford Jail Experiment: Historical past of a Lie (Springer). Le Texier briefly seems within the documentary, however his affect is obvious past that: The makers have adopted within the wake of his analysis, however with out endorsing the characterization of Zimbardo’s conduct as dishonest.

That’s left to the surviving individuals to do. Most of them felt, or got here to really feel, misled or abused by the experiment, or exploited by Zimbardo to additional his media stardom from the Nineteen Seventies on. If I learn my notes appropriately, he’s referred to twice as “the disco psychologist,” which was among the many much less hostile remarks.

Zimbardo seems within the third episode, responding to criticisms and letting his personal vituperations fly, however he’s in the end assured that the experiment demonstrated one thing about how evil conditions can flip good individuals into monsters. I don’t know if the story will ever attain the display once more, however it’s unlikely to enhance on this rendition.