Remember The Stanford Prison Experiment? It Was A Lie

Those kids didn’t turn evil, the professor did. It was about fame, not psychology.

Stanford Prison Experiment Collage// photos from Stanford Library // top left source / top right source / bottom left source / bottom right source

You’ve probably heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment. It was one of the most famous psychological experiments of all time, cited in textbooks and psychology classes for decades.

We believed it. All of us. Because, it was Stanford! You know?
It would be a half century before the truth came out.

Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo had been studying prison conditions and wondered about the dynamic between guards and prisoners.

Were the meanest prison guards evil people? Or were they “good people” who were corrupted by power?

What happens if you take good people and put them in an evil situation? Does humanity win? Or does evil triumph?

So, Zimbardo set up an experiment. He ran an ad looking for male students to participate. 70 young men answered, and he hand-picked 24 participants.

Newspaper ad and coverage of the experiment // source