To Err Is Human
Influential research on our social shortcomings attracts a scathing critique
By Bruce Bower
It’s a story of fear, loathing, and crazed college boys trapped in perhaps the most notorious social psychology study of all time. In the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo randomly assigned male college students to roles as either inmates or guards in a simulated prison. Within days, the young guards were stripping prisoners naked and denying them food. The mock prisoners were showing signs of withdrawal and depression. In light of the escalating guard brutality and apparent psychological damage to the prisoners, Zimbardo halted the study after 6 days instead of the planned 2 weeks.
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Zimbardo and his colleagues concluded that anyone given a guard’s uniform and power over prisoners succumbs to that situation’s siren call to abuse underlings. In fact, this year, in a May 6 Boston Globe editorial, Zimbardo asserted that U.S. soldiers granted unrestricted power at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison inevitably ended up mistreating detainees—just as the college boys did in the famous experiment.