Experiments with Prisoner / Warden Psychology

Wired Magazine recently interviewed psychologist Philip Zimbardo regarding his new book The Lucifer Effect and the parallels between his famous Stanford University experiment and modern mistreatment of prisoners. In 1971, Zimbardo experimented with volunteer prisoners and wardens to determine the behavioral changes "good" people would exhibit when granted the leeway to deviate from accepted norms to achieve a goal. His experiment was cut short after only five days when the prisoners were forced to commit sexual acts. Speaking with Wired, Zimbardo states, "Situations can be sufficiently powerful to undercut empathy, altruism, morality and to get ordinary people, even good people, to be seduced into doing really bad things -- but only in that situation. Understanding the reason for someone's behavior is not the same as excusing it. Understanding why somebody did something -- where that why has to do with situational influences -- leads to a totally different way of dealing with evil. It leads to developing prevention strategies to change those evil-generating situations, rather than the current strategy, which is to change the person."

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