Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Abstract

Author NoteThibault Le Texier is associate researcher at the University of Nice.This research has been funded by the Région Centre, Ciclic Fund. I am particularly indebted to Richard Griggs for detailed comments and suggestions. I would like to thank too the participants in the Stanford prison experiment who agreed to answer my questions, along with Alex Haslam and the two other reviewers who discussed this paper in detail, James Lyle Peterson, Daniel Hartwig of the Stanford Library Special Collections, AbstractThe Stanford prison experiment (SPE) is one of psychology's most famous studies. It has been criticized on many grounds, and yet a majority of textbook authors have ignored these criticisms in their discussions of the SPE, thereby misleading both students and the general public about the study's questionable scientific validity. Data collected from a thorough investigation of the SPE archives and interviews with fifteen of the participants in the experiment further question the study's scientific merit. These data are not only supportive of previous criticisms of the SPE, such as the presence of demand characteristics, but provide new criticisms of the SPE based on heretofore unknown information. These new criticisms include the biased and incomplete collection of data, the extent to which the SPE drew on a prison experiment devised and conducted by students in one of Zimbardo's classes three months earlier, the fact that the guards received precise instructions regarding the treatment of the prisoners, the fact that the guards were not told they were subjects, and the fact that participants were almost never completely immersed by the situation. Possible explanations of the inaccurate textbook portrayal and general misperception of the SPE's scientific validity over the past five decades, in spite of its flaws and shortcomings, are discussed. Keywords: Stanford prison experiment, P. G. Zimbardo, epistemology DEBUNKING THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT 3 Debunking the Stanford Prison ExperimentTo show that normal people could behave in pathological ways even without the external pressure of an experimenter-authority, my colleagues and I put college students in a simulated prison setting and observed the power of roles, rules, and expectations. Young men selected because they were normal on all the psychological dimensions we measured (many of them were avowed pacifists) became hostile and sadistic, verbally and physically abusing others -if they enacted the randomly assigned role of all-powerful mock guards. Those randomly assigned to be mock prisoners suffered emotional breakdowns, irrational thinking, and behaved self-destructively -despite their constitutional stability and normalcy. This planned two-week simulation had to be ended after six days because the inhumanity of the "evil situation" had totally dominated the humanity of the "good" participants.

Promises and perils of experimentation: The mutual internal validity problem

“…In PROMISES AND PERILS OF EXPERIMENTATION 6 fact, many classic social psychological experiments in the 20th century used experiments for such purposes, but still claimed to have offered a deep and elegant understanding of pressing societal problems and human nature. However, when examined closely, it becomes clear that these experiments generated enormous appeal because of the moral subtexts and sweeping generalizations and claims, despite their empirical flaws (e.g., Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment; Le Texier, 2019;Resnick, 2018).…”

Post-Publication Peer Review for Real

“…Rohrer et al, 2017;van der Zee et al, 2017) , excavation of historical facts (e.g. Le Texier, 2019;Perry, 2012) , and even whistleblowing (e.g. Jha, 2012) .…”

Are Milgram’s Obedience Studies Internally Valid? Critique and Counter-Critique

“…]" This kind of critical response is the emerging reality in university classes that continue to present what are three of the most famous studies in social psychology: the obedience studies, Sherif's robber's cave study, and Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment. This is because in the last few years all three studies have attracted heated criticisms that have attempted to undermine their internal validity (Brannigan, 2020;Brannigan et al, 2015;Perry, 2012Perry, , 2018Le Texier, 2019). Consider, for example, Le Texier (2019) whose archival research questions the accuracy of Zimbardo's presentation of the Stanford prison experiments.…”

“…This is because in the last few years all three studies have attracted heated criticisms that have attempted to undermine their internal validity (Brannigan, 2020;Brannigan et al, 2015;Perry, 2012Perry, , 2018Le Texier, 2019). Consider, for example, Le Texier (2019) whose archival research questions the accuracy of Zimbardo's presentation of the Stanford prison experiments. In the prestigious American Psychologist, Le Texier accuses Zimbardo of stealing a student's research idea, instructing the guards to engage in prisoner abuse, and misleadingly (fraudulently?)…”