Episode 53: The Stanford Prison Experiment

Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist who’s best known for running the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, died last week. That’s a good excuse to discuss his legacy: what did his famous experiment tell us about the power of the situation to make normal people commit evil and sadistic acts?In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart go back to the original report of one of the most famous psychology studies of all time, and then see how the experiment is looking after more than 50 years of discussion and debate (spoiler: not good).The Studies Show is brought to you by Semafor. You can sign up for their variety of online newsletters that give you in-depth information in digestible chunks. This week, we discussed the Semafor Business newsletter with Liz Hoffman, which included an interview with an electric vehicle company CEO who’s making a bet, after something of a downturn, that EVs really are the future.Show notes* The first academic paper to describe the Stanford Prison Experiment, from 1973* More details on the study, including the prisoners’ “rebellion”, on Zimbardo’s website* The first critique from 2019, from social psychologists* The second critique from 2019, from Thibault le Texier* Zimbardo’s response to the critiques* Zimbardo on the Abu Ghraib prison torture during the Iraq War* Zimbardo’s cringeworthy BBC interview on the effects of videogames* Guardian critique of Zimbardo’s videogame claims by Pete EtchellsCreditsThe Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe