Glenden BrownAre you good or evil?
The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the more famous pscyhology experiments (another is the Milgram experiment) - it revealed an alarming ability of people previously deemed “normal” to engage in shocking, abusive, cruel behavior but also that similar persons would submit to that abusive behavior.
The SPE was planned and conducted at Standford University in 1971. The plan was simple: a group of volunteers would participate in a prison simulation for 14 days, each earning $15/day. There were 9 guards who worked three shifts and initially 9 prisoners. The volunteers subjects were largely indistinguishable from one another in terms of their “profile” - mostly white, middle class men who were either college or graduate students. Before participating, the men went through a psychological profile to determine their emotional fitness; all the men fell well within the normal range, and would by almost any measure be judged psychologically healthy. The roles of guard and prisoner were randomly determined, not assigned.
The experiment was scheduled to begin on a specified sunday when the “prisoners” would be arrested by Stanford police and taken to the makeshift prison. There, they went through an intake procedure designed to mimic the actual experience of prisoners in jail. They were issued prison clothes, “deloused” and processed. The prisoners were assigned numbers and cells. The guards were divided into three man teams working round the clock shifts.
Within two days, the prison experiment had become a Dantean horror; men previously judged “normal” fell into the roles of guards and prisoners with incredible speed. The guards abused their authority, engaging in sadistic practices, the prisoners fell into a passive state, accepting these punishments. The guards grew increasingly creative and cruel in enforcing the rules and punishing infractions. By Thursday, the guards were engaging in sexual shaming of the prisoners. By friday morning, the experiment had reached such a state that the experimenter, Philip Zimbardo, ended it early. Interestingly, of the 50 outside persons who visited the experimental prison, only one objected to its conditions; her objections were persuasive enough that Zimbardo ended the experiment the morning after she made her objections known.
One of the most disturbing insights of the SPE was the way in which seemingly ordinary men engaged in damaging and brutal violence against people who a few days before could have been their peers, sitting in classrooms next to them. The guards behavior in particular is disturbing because of the way in which they quickly came to inhabit the role of “guard” - wearing their military uniforms and reflective sun glasses they felt safely transformed from themselves into “Mr. Correctional Officer Sir”, as they required the prisoners call them. The guards came to see the prisoners as less than human, which translated into treating them badly.
The prisoners, by contrast, quickly slipped into a state of self-interest - strangely unable to coordinate effective group efforts or even see the actions of other prisoners as something that could benefit them. Interestingly, even though the prisoners could leave the experiment at any time, they came to believe they were unable to leave. In a disturbing twist, they actually believed that the SPE was a real prison - run not by guards and law enforcement but by psychologists. This weird intellectual twist created an environment in which the prisoners came to believe they had no power. In one particular instance that became hugely influential, one of the prisoners wanted out. When the experiment leader tried to talk hiim into staying - by offering to make the experience easier on him if he became snitch - the man faced a moral dilemna. Unable to become a snitch, unwilling to face what felt like a failure to finish the experiment, he told himself that the experimenters had refused to let him leave. He convinced the other prisoners that was the case.
SPE raises a profound question - are you good or evil? In that or similar setting would you do good or evil? It’s easy to believe we would be good guards - we wouldn’t abuse the prisoners, we’d see them as fully human and treat them with dignity. It’s easy to convince ourselves that we would be good prisoners - we would resist unjust treatment by the guards, we’d join in the hunger strike, we would refuse to turn against our fellow prisoners.
In setting up the SPE, Zimbardo and his assistants set up a list of rules the prisoners were expected to obey. One rule said “Prisoners must eat at mealtimes and only at mealtimes.” The original intent of this rule was to limit food to meals, to stop snacking. During the experiment, the obvious intent of the rule was ignored and came to be read differently - that the prisoners MUST eat during at mealtimes - refusing to eat was treated as a violation of the rule. During the experiment, one prisoner began a hunger strike; his refusal to eat was perceived not as an attack on the authority of the guards, who reacted with increasingly brutal, psychological torment. One of the guards went so far as to try to force food down the prisoner’s throat.
In examining the learnings from the experiment, Philip Zimbardo who designed the SPE, concluded that the problem is not that some people are simply evil or some people simply good that instead, environmental forces - setting, expected role, peer influence, social expectations - are hugely important in determining behavior. Zimbardo suggests that the problem is not a few bad apples spoiling the bunch, but instead, good apples stuck in a toxically bad barrel. Zimbardo’s description is significantly more nuanced; he says each of us is a complex mix of good and evil, a mixture of impulses toward altriusim and caring but also toward authoritarianism, dishonesty, abusiveness. In this framework, the only possible answer to the question “Are you good or evil?” is “Yes, yes I am.”
March 25th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Here, here Glen,
Finally, someone else is getting to the nub of it.
There is evil in some people, but, Milgram and Standford (I think) are about tribal vs enlightened thought/behavior.
We are all some version of the expression of our DNA.
For some, tribal behavior is a constant. These people blend in because our society accommodates tribalism (bigotry, religion, NASCAR, excess).
For the unlucky conscious, we face choices everyday. Take the tribal path of the enlightened one. Sometimes its a decision whether to turn our head and gawk at a girl or pull an Eliot Spitzer.
Anger always tests us.
And for the very few, very disciplined, there is full time awareness of oneself and nearly constant enlightened thought and behavior, but always by choice.
Know your animal.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Hey Cliff,
I think both experiments also really shine a light onto the way humans respond to each other, to social forces but also to authority figures. In the Milgram experiment, people “shocked” the test subjects because an authority figure told them to and because the authority figure told them they were not accountable - he/she would take accountabilitiy.
In the Stanford experiment, the guards adapted very quickly to their authority role by acting the way they had seen similar authority figures act - weirdly enough the harsher guards actually claimed at some points they were acting as they’d seen guards act in a movie. The social cues they took told them that was how prison guards were supposed to act so they did but also because an authority figure (the psychologist planning and leading the experiment) told them to be prison guards and implicitly approved of their tactics.
A huge part of Dr. Zimbardo’s learning was exactly what you pointed out - that many people are able to blend in and don’t really think about their attitudes or behavior in any explicit way.
I think we’re talking about unhcarted territory - and yes to stretch the metaphor, here, there be dragons.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Glen, you’ve probably already seen this. My favorite. It makes sense of the world.
Perhaps this will help too.
Dean’s book is based largely on Bob Altemyer’s essential work on authoritarianism. He’s releasing a new book in pdf form, one chapter at a time. I urge anyone with an interest in this subject to get it.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Cliff - yes, I have seen these posts and the source material at the time you first posted them. The tendency toward authoritarianism seems connected to feelings of vulnerability and insecurity. I wonder if Americans have ever really been comfortable with our whole “world superpower” status?
March 25th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Sure places Church Court in the LDS Church in a different perspective. Heck, for that matter, it places everything in the LDS Church is a different perspective.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Glenden –
This topic is fascinating. I experienced something similar — I went to an action at the Nevada Test Site back in 2002 and we had a civil disobedience training. During the training we did some role playing and some of us were assigned to be protesters blocking the road to the test site and some were assigned to play the “Wackenhuts” — the paid military types who are hired to guard the place. When we got into the role play, those assigned as wackenhuts quickly got into their role (keep in mind these are liberal-peace-environmental types) and when we talked about the roleplay afterward they were kind of disturbed at how quickly they saw those protesting as the enemy and were determined to quash our protest as completely as possible.
There’s a really good film that showed at Sundance a couple of years ago “The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” (I think HBO films picked it up) that talks about another experiment (in the 60s I believe) where “normal” people were told to give electric shocks to other people who would scream in pain — they kept doing it as long as someone in charge kept telling them it was okay to keep shocking the person.
Experiments like this make me wonder if we still have a ways to go before we evolve enough to not be constantly on the brink of destroying the planet and all the people on it.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Jenni - the shock experiment is the Milgram experiment. People were told they were acting as teachers - that they needed to “shock” the learner to help him/her learn and that each wrong question would get a higher shock than the last. The “learner” was in fact a member of the research team and received no shocks. He/she would complain about having a heart problem and would in fact at some point during the experiment would fall silent as if they had suffered a heart attack. Some large percentage kept shocking the person even after he/she apparently had a heart attack. The “teachers” kept shocking the person - they were often assured the researcher would accept the culpability for the injuries. Even over the objections, the researcher would keep telling them, ‘You have to shock them, you can’t stop now,” and people would do it.
I’m working on another post about the idea of “roles” and how we inhabit them which will I hope expand on the idea of hte guards or “Wackenhuts.”
GB
March 25th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Seeing all those peace/environmental folks turn into what they fought against, even for a few minutes, was kind of disheartening for me. Made me wonder if under the right circumstances I could turn against my own values. I’d like to think that I’d be strong enough, but I’m not so sure after that experiment.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I remember the Stanford experiment from seeing a documentary about it. I wonder what Dr. Zimbardo thinks about what happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in 2003-2004, where military police untrained in running a POW camp were put in charge of prisoners, many of whom had done nothing wrong. Only this “experiment” got way out of control.
Glenden, you have to read this article: Annals of War-Exposure: The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib.
UPDATE: I just remembered, Dr. Zimbardo was in fact called as an expert witness at the trial of some of the accused soldiers from Abu Ghraib.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Jenni, your concern is noted, but there is another element that has not been mentioned: Projection. Say I’m to assume the ‘wackenhut’ role, I’ll be as mean, tough and authoritarian as I believe they would be. Them and us generalizations are not as valid as we would think.
One more thing, the interrogators, and other agents of some specificity are selected from among the many for attributes that seem to have proven out. Those atributes are not always of the sadistic sort.
my $.02
March 25th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Thanks to Barack Obama, we typical white people now know the reason for our fear of people who are different. He told us It’s been bred into us which means its part of our genetic makeup. Since we are told that when something is genetic then it isn’t something we chose and cannot be changed, in fact it is cruel, immoral, and shows a lack of tolerance to even try. I would love to expose myself to different people but being a typical white person I just don’t have the choice. I mean would anyone really choose the lifestyle of a typical white person? Having the burden of being afraid of everyone who is different? Just think how debilitating it is to walk down the street and see someone you don’t know? It’s terrifying! But now thanks to Barack Obama I now understand it is perfectly normal, I did not choose it, and it cannot be changed. I am who I am damn it, I’m a typical white person so you better accept me for who I am! Please though, if you are different than me try not to be on the same street as I am, I mean have a heart!
March 25th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Hmmmm.
Actually, Ken, you are even an order of magnitude worse.
You are a typical white Mormon male person!
March 25th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Man that makes me a flaming typical white person!
March 25th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Typically unreal! Ken, please seek help.
“They hate us for our freedom”. GW Bush, Kens political savior.
“They hate us because it’s pretty obvious that we treat them like shit and they respond accordingly”. Pastor Wright, Obamas’ pastor for many years.
Jesus Christ advocates for war on muslamoafascists. Onward.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Well, tonight I was elected as a delegate to the Davis County and the Utah State Republican conventions. I will be able to play my part in making sure conservative principles are advanced in this state.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Just don’t mistake paranoid delusion for ‘conservative principles’.
March 25th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Congratulations, Ken!
March 26th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Ken:
What kind of conservative principals are those? Are you going to have the chairman set you up with one of those payday loan operations where you can get a 520% return on your loans?
Now that’s what I call family values. Grab-that-cash family values!
March 26th, 2008 at 9:01 am
The vast majority of Americans haven’t a clue about the world or international relations. It is already, a long and complex history.
The average American see international relations more like a pro football game.