By Sarah Osman

Just how unethical was the Stanford Prison Experiment? Could anybody — in good conscience — recreate it? Why does being given authority change people so radically?

The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth, streaming on the National Geographic Channel

A scene from National Geographic’s The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth. Photo: DirectTV

Even after 50 years, one psychology experiment continues to be the talk around water coolers in labs everywhere: the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. In 1971, Dr. Philip Zimbardo decided to test how being in a position of authority affects human judgment. To test this, Zimbardo amassed a group of white male college students, who were instructed to play a role —  either a prisoner or a guard. For $15 a day, the group was sent to a “prison” built in Stanford’s psychology building. The prisoners were given dehumanizing smocks to wear and guards were told to only call the prisoners by their ID numbers. According to Zimbardo, the guards were told not to physically harm the prisoners, but to maintain law and order.

Predictably, all hell broke loose. The guards mocked the prisoners, forcing them to do physical exercises. The prisoners rebelled. In response, the guards seized their “captives'” mattresses and locked a prisoner in “the hole.” One prisoner broke down after just 36 hours, demanding to be let out. The abuse continued, becoming so painful that what was meant to be a two-week experiment ended after only six days. Zimbardo concluded that a total embrace of the prison simulation led to the chaos — the participants truly believed they were prisoners and guards.

Or did they? How real was the actual Stanford Prison Experiment? Those are the questions posed by National Geographic’s docuseries The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth. Over three hour-long episodes, the series dissects the experiment by interviewing participants, skeptics of Zimbardo’s work, and the mastermind behind the  effort himself.

Some truths about what really happened are indeed revealed. Today, the participants admit that they thought the experiment was meant to show how harmful prisons were and intended to reinforce that point through their behavior. One participant, Dave, aka “John Wayne,” was an actor who decided to take on the role of a hard-ass guard, inspired by movies and his fraternity hazing. The prisoner who had a breakdown, Doug, admitted to faking the whole thing because he wanted to leave. And, while Zimbardo claimed that the guards were not told how to act, the guards themselves counter this statement. They confess that in orientation they were given guidelines — and some participants left before the experiment even started, recognizing that the orientation was blatant interference.

Hearing from the actual participants themselves is fascinating. Some have never been interviewed before. We hear how one guard felt that he had always been picked on; the experiment gave him a sense of power, which explains his behavior. Also, the participants believed this confrontational scenario offered a way to “fight the man,” and that makes sense (this was 1971, after all). This notion of playacting certainly helps explain some of the behavior — they decided to embrace being thespians. Author and researcher Thibault Le Texier debunks the efficacy of the Stanford Prison Experiment, noting that the study can be refuted if it is determined that the participants were acting. He also argues that the guards didn’t know they were being studied too, which in itself is unethical.

Still, the last episode hits a bit of a snag. The interviews with Zimbardo are enlightening (more on that in a minute) but they are bogged down because of reenactments of the experiment itself, which the participants watch and give feedback on. It wasn’t clear to me why these “you are there” segments were included, other than to prove that the whole setup was nothing but a master acting class. Instead, it would have been much more illuminating to have seen the participants confront Zimbardo once and for all. Why this didn’t happen is unclear — perhaps Zimbardo’s health didn’t allow for it? (He passed away in October.) The decision to include the reenactments is unfortunate — a discussion about ethics between the participants and the doctor would have been much more revealing and dramatically effective.

Meanwhile, Zimbardo poses some apt questions that are not answered by the participants. Why, for instance, did they continue to abuse the prisoners late into the night? Long after the cameras were turned off? Why did they push the prisoners to the extremes that they did? And why do we continue to see prison guards in real life abuse prisoners, again and again and again?

The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth ends up creating more questions than it answers. Fittingly, that’s exactly what the experiment itself has been doing for years, and why the behavior it inspired stands the test of time. Just how unethical was the Stanford Prison Experiment? Could anybody — in good conscience — recreate it? Why does being given authority change people so radically? There is still more unlocking to do.

Sarah Mina Osman is based in Los Angeles. In addition to the Arts Fuse, her writing can be found in Huffington Post, Success Magazine, Matador Network, HelloGiggles, Business Insider, and WatchMojo. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and is working on her first novel. She has a deep appreciation for sloths and tacos. You can keep up with her on Instagram @SarahMinaOsman and at Bluesky @sarahminaosman.bsky.social.