The SPE was one of the most popularized psychological experiments of all times: Can decent American college students turn into submissive prisoners and sadistic guards in a mere six days simply by taking over a prescribed social role in a mock-up prison?
The following script is a critical analysis of Philip Zimbardo’s experiment which appears to be self-serving from the beginning, lacking the rigor of a scientific study and a prudent sense for ethical standards. A Research Study Critique Rubric is added at the end of the analysis as a rating of the experiment’s underlying parameters.
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The Stanford Prison Experiment – An Analysis by Joana Stella Kompa
Haslam and Reicher proved Zimbado wrong in more than one way by re-staging the infamous experiment almost 40 years later, filmed by the BBC