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2025
10 NEWS
6 DECEMBER 2024 ausdoc . com . au
Revealing the menace within
‘ Prisoners ’ with bags over their heads .
to produce the 1978 Belmont Report , which codified three principles for human participation .
These were respect for persons , for instance , ensuring that people entering research do so voluntarily and with enough information ; that people are treated ethically and protected from harm ; and that the benefits of research are fairly distributed .
The extent to which Professor Zimbardo ’ s team provided information — in line with the first principle — continued to stir debate .
In 2019 , a researcher from France ’ s Côte d ’ Azur University , Dr Thibault Le Texier ( PhD ), accused Professor Zimbardo of not really running an experiment , but an exhibition of his pre-existing belief that prisons were toxic .
“ Instead of trying to neutralise the potential effects of this conviction on his
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objectivity , [ Professor ] Zimbardo designed his experiment from the outset as a demonstration of the toxicity of
’ The findings came at the expense of human suffering .’
prison ,” Dr Le Texier wrote in American Psychologist .
He said participants working as guards knew Professor
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Zimbardo wanted them to act aggressively and “ hammed it up ”.
One guard , Dave Eshelman , claimed in 2011 : “ I set out with a definite plan in mind , to try to force the action , force something to happen , so that the researchers would have something to work with .”
Another prison experiment ?
Dr Le Texier also argued that the experiment ’ s findings were worthless due to selective sampling as they were based on 21 hours of video and audio from the 150-hour study .
In 2001 , UK researchers Professor Alex Haslam and Professor Steve Reicher declared that trying to reproduce the results in the 21st century was ethically “ impossible ”.
“ One of the great problems arising from the Stanford prison experiment was that it made strong claims … but then led to debate being closed off because further research was declared to be ethically unacceptable ,” they wrote in the British Journal of Social Psychology in 2001 .
Then came their BBC prison study .
The two UK researchers created an environment resembling “ hierarchical institutions ” such as prisons , schools and barracks .
They randomised 15 men to guards or prisoners and employed daily psychometric testing .
However , their experiment did not produce the “ tyranny ” of Stanford , with the BBC prison study guards struggling to unify when the prisoners collectively challenged them .
“ The results of the BBC prison study suggest that the way in which members of strong groups behave depends upon the norms and values associated with their specific social identity and may be either anti- or prosocial ,” Professors Haslam and Reicher said .
Perhaps being filmed for the UK ’ s public broadcaster was another factor .
Professor Zimbardo never changed his view that his infamous experiment deserved respect for its findings .
But he eventually acknowledged that the study was unethical , even though no participants reported long-lasting trauma .
In his 2007 book The Lucif e rE ff e c t , he said : “ I was guilty of the sin of omission — the evil of inaction — of not providing adequate oversight when it was required .
“ The findings came at the expense of human suffering .
“ I am sorry for that and to this day apologise for contributing to this inhumanity .”
Photos courtesy PrisonExp . org