A chat with the creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment

nautil.us

60 points·fraqed··7 comments

This used to be one of my favorite studies and now I see it as basically a trash study. Not something we can replicate, mechanisms are poor, yet the implications were huge. We really should be more careful with things like this. With all the replication and quality issues in social and psych studies right now, I think the tide is turning and maybe we can go back to philosophy.

Yeah, the Milgram experiment had similar implications, was clearly better designed, and variations of it have been replicated several times [0].

Interesting that Milgram and Zimbardo were in the same high school class

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Given that it is non-replicable, isn't it better called the "Stanford Prison Incident"? We can still learn things from it as a historical incident like Abu Garib, but it fails to really walk the path of experimental science.

Right. "Not something we can replicate".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England

I wonder if any student that actually participated in this experiment has a different take on things?

Yep; John Mark, a guard. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2y5sbt/iwasa_guard_in...

> I personally think Zimbardo is a self-promoting sensationalists more than a serious academic researcher and I think he was aware that this had the potential to make his career.

The aforementioned chat is a bunch of softballs. I do think this study warrants much more scrutiny.

In the original link, Zimbardo misrepresents things a little bit by saying that he was ultimately the one who intervened when, in reality, it was another researcher (who was romantically involved with him and who later became his wife):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Maslach

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/970108prisonexp.html

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