“Human behavior is incredibly pliable, plastic.” -Philip Zimbardo
The Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 revealed to us that the human character and behavior can easily be manipulated. In short, Philip Zimbardo and his staff created a scenario which brought to light an unsettling reality: the human is a creature of context. The majority of participants were students enrolled at the University of Stanford, one of the most prestigious and moral intellectual schools in the United States. Twenty-four volunteers were assigned an identity for the experiment by flipping a coin, one side was prisoner and the other guard. The staff went to great lengths to ensure the environmental context not only promoted belief in, but provided continual reinforcement of, their given identity.
In order to have the experiment be as true and authentic as it could be, the guards would have to believe they were actually guards, and the same for the prisoner, in a psychological sense. The participant had to inhabit the identity, the mindset, of the given role. The belief in this given psychological identity was continually reinforced through the participant’s environment. The local police department was recruited to assist in furnishing props and personnel. Stanford County Jail was built in the basement of the Psychology Department building. Parts of the corridor were closed off to create a yard and hole for the participants, as well as private jail cells. By going to such great measures, the surrounding environmental evidence (places, things, events) would bear witness to the given identity. Prisoners would be kept in cells and the guards would assume authority.
The “prisoner” participants were arrested unexpectedly, and in mass, at Palo Alto, California by local law enforcement officers. They were charged with violation of Penal Code 211: Armed Robbery and Burglary, a 459 PC, and read their Miranda Rights. The officers proceeded to search and then handcuff them, typical procedures for the day. Once the officers finished their on-site protocols, the criminals were taken by squad car to the police station where they were read their Miranda Rights again, booked, and were eventually locked in a holding cell blindfolded. From here, the prisoners were transported to the Stanford County Jail for further processing and detainment. When the prisoners arrived at the SCJ, they were introduced to the Warden who impressed upon them their social status and identity: they were a human who is under his complete authority while in prison for criminal acts. The prisoners were escorted and blindfolded for all movements inside the SCJ.
The experiment was set to focus primarily on the effects of perceived authority. The prisoners psychologically surrender and submit to the authority of the guards while the guards assume that authority over the prisoners. The perceived authority, or absence of, was constructed for, and constricted to, the experiment. The context, as rich and intricate as it was, was a construct designed for the experiment— a false reality. Yet the abuse, trauma, and victimization experienced by the prisoners was very real. The staff quietly observed as the guards naturally became increasingly aggressive, authoritative, and abusive over time. During the post-assessment interviews, it was discovered that roughly one-third of the guards actually enjoyed inflicting pain upon another human. The participants explained that they were fully aware it was an experiment, yet because the context sustained the illusion from moment to moment, it was as if it were true reality.
Zimbardo concludes that humans are creatures of context. Furthermore, the context is not required to be plausible, stable, or even enduring for it to organize human thought and behavior. In other words, context reinforces reality— or perhaps rather our perceptions of reality. The human psyche is incredibly suggestible and pliable when it comes to an individual’s reality and identity in that reality. The rise in violent and authoritarian behavior from the guards was due to psychological belief, what their minds imagined. They fully believed and imagined themselves into their given role— same for the prisoners. Each participant fully believed in their constructed reality and identity to the point of suffering, or inflicting, real emotional and physical trauma. The Standford Prison Experiment was shutdown after only six days.