20 ms·

The Lifespan of a Lie – Why can’t we escape the Stanford Prison Experiment?

422 points by fermigier 8y ago

gringoDan 8y ago
This is a fascinating article about how much of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment was a sham. > The appeal of the Stanford prison experiment seems to go deeper than its scientific validity, perhaps because it tells us a story about ourselves that we desperately want to believe: that we, as individuals, cannot really be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do. As troubling as it might seem to accept Zimbardo’s fallen vision of human nature, it is also profoundly liberating. It means we’re off the hook. Our actions are determined by circumstance. Our fallibility is situational. Just as the Gospel promised to absolve us of our sins if we would only believe, the SPE offered a form of redemption tailor-made for a scientific era, and we embraced it. It seems that we fell for the narrative fallacy every time this "research" was used as an explanation for behavior in the real world.
- firasd 8y ago
  Interesting comments about a similarly famous study with a similar gist, the Milgram experiment: "Many other studies, such as Soloman Asch’s famous experiment[1] demonstrating that people will ignore the evidence of their own eyes in conforming to group judgments about line lengths, illustrate the profound effect our environments can have on us. The far more methodologically sound — but still controversial[2] — Milgram experiment demonstrates how prone we are to obedience in certain settings. " [1] https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html [2] https://psmag.com/social-justice/electric-schlock-65377 https://psmag.com/social-justice/electric-schlock-65377
  - rossdavidh 8y ago
    I am a bit suspicious of the conclusions drawn from the Asch experiment. The subjects are put in a situation in which they are led to believe that one of two things is true: 1) I am unable to tell which line is longer 2) Every other person in this room is unable to tell which line is longer They are reported to have acted upset, which leads one to think they were not wanting it to be (1), but the only other option (they knew of) was (2), which is, in fact, even less plausible. So, really, in that (very artificial) situation, concluding that they have lost the ability to tell which line is longer, while unlikely, was the least unlikely option. So, they chose to believe (1) over (2). Their only mistake was in not thinking of the possibility that every other person, including the researcher, was trying to deceive them. That's not at all the conclusion that Asch (and others since) have drawn from it. I believe that study could replicate, but I don't think it means what they say it means.
    - Izkata 8y ago
      The issue I have with the Asch experiment is that it also conflates conforming and belonging. External group pressure vs a want to be included. It seems to me to be testing the second while being reported as the first.
    - djsumdog 8y ago
      Vsauce's Mind Field series replicates this experiment, in the traditional sensational way he does everything. It's still pretty interesting to actually watch the people and their facial reactions. Still, draw your own conclusions.
  - im3w1l 8y ago
    It's interesting to contrast this with yanny / laurel / dress color
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    If we're interested in improving the world -- improving things like human dignity, welfare; and minimizing human suffering -- I think this is one of the most important concepts to understand about human nature. It's the same concept I try to illustrate by noting the NASA Challenger disaster was not a case of an unknown, but one where groupthink murdered 7 astronauts.[1] The desire people have to conform to authority is extreme. I can even think of a remarkable personal example from growing up, when a boy in class was given the punishment of having to sit next to an often-bullied girl. The teacher was not above the bullying, he had conformed to it. That must have had a detrimental effect on a young girl's self esteem. So if we're still murdering, toeturing, and dehumanizing people in order to conform to concepts of authority and hatred, how much have we grown from our past? Isn't this the same concept that we're supposed to disagree with when it came to the Nazis, North Korea, etc.? That we are free and just society, and we fight to defeat those who aren't? 1-https://mobile.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/weekinreview/the-nation-nasa-s-curse-groupthink-is-30-years-old-and-still-going-strong.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/weekinreview/the-natio...
    - PopePompous 8y ago
      I think characterizing the Challenger launch decision as murder is unfair. At worst it was manslaughter.
      - wallace_f 8y ago
        I believe groupthink killed those astronauts. However, I'm not really focusing this argumemt around the idea of bringing leaders at NASA up on murder charges.
  - djsumdog 8y ago
    I've watched the whole video of the Milgram experiment. People claim those who were the teachers knew it was fake, but interviews years later have people claiming they really thought they killed the person in the other room. Not to mention his experiment was replicated by several universities around the world[1], although due to modern ethical standards, it would be impossible to reproduce ethically at most universities today[2]. I don't think Milgram falls into the same category, especially with all the work they put in at Harvard in the controls (the learner was a tape recording; so everyone heard the exact same thing. It was the same professor in the room with him; always replicating the same dialog). This is in direct contrast with Vsauce's trolley problem experiment, which had way too small a sample size, and who forced a response for one person by changing the conditions of the experiment (there was no one outside when he tried to get help). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Replications_and_variations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Replication... [2]: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/replicating-milgram https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/replicating-mi...
    - neuromantik8086 8y ago
      There are some folks who are pretty dead set on maligning Milgram alongside Zimbardo. Namely, Gina Perry wrote a book criticizing Milgram and his experiment's validity [1]. I haven't read it, but looking at some of the reviews, it seems most likely that it's a mixture of truth and the typical schlocky scientific journalism I've come to know and revile. [2] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Shock-Machine-psychology-experiments-ebook/dp/B007NOI2YC/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Shock-Machine-psychology-exper... [2] Funny anecdote- when I was still in science (brain imaging) a reporter from a major news outlet interviewed another member of my lab about what brain activity would look like in a dead person's brain. The question was entirely serious.
      - hithereagain 8y ago
        [2] Brain activity appears to continue after people are dead, according to new study. (9 march 2017) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/what-happens-die-brain-activity-life-heart-beating-death-after-eeg-study-research-a7620131.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/what-happens-die-...
- trhway 8y ago
  > we, as individuals, cannot really be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do. opposite. It shows that we have to be held accountable - without credible threat of such accountability the reprehensible things will be done. >it is also profoundly liberating. It means we’re off the hook. Our actions are determined by circumstance. not even close. It means that person A putting person B in the position of power without proper checks on that power and without effective system of accountability for the power abuse is guilty too of whatever power abuses person B would commit.
  - smogcutter 8y ago
    Setting aside that part of the article's point is that it's unclear what (if anything) the experiment shows at all, that's not really a rebuttal. You're agreeing that systems create behavior, and adding on that therefore those in the system need to be restrained with the threat of accountability. But you see how even if you believe the experiment argues that systems need to be held accountable, that still lets individuals off the hook? "It's not my fault, I was only following orders. Someone should have been holding me accountable." In fact, the article has a direct account of Zimbardo's experiment being used to defend a criminal. It turns out later that the defense was largely a lie.
    - trhway 8y ago
      >You're agreeing that systems create behavior i don't think systems create behavior. They do though unleash and amplify. They also can force. I don't think any doctor, with their deeply ingrained "do no harm", would administer a shock in the Milgram for example. > "It's not my fault, I was only following orders. I think following an order backed by a credible punishing force is separate subject. >Someone should have been holding me accountable." That comes as an attempt at defense when you're already being held accountable, and which is basically equivalent to an admission that you've made a error calculating your chances of being held accountable, and it is puzzling to see why/how some reasonable people would still fall for it and accept such admission as a defense whether in legal or in moral/ethical space.
      - 8y ago
- mamcx 8y ago
  >Just as the Gospel promised to absolve us of our sins if we would only believe Ironic example... and wrong. BTW is not for "believe", but for repent, change the old ways and continusly live good for the rest of life. And have faith... too.
  - dang 8y ago
    You're probably right, but please let's not get into an off-topic religious debate. Those turn into flamewars.
    - mamcx 8y ago
      Is not about that, but how persistent some idea can be, because honestly, how fact-check everything?
      - dang 8y ago
        I believe that you didn't mean it to be that, but experience has shown that it turns into that with high probability if the discussion is allowed to proceed.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- grovehaw 8y ago
  Ten years earlier a book was published which was a work of sociology based on participant observation, an approach many here would regard as unscientific. It was very much an explanation of behaviour in the real world. Erving Goffman's Asylums [0], in its four essays, identifies the creation of social roles and related rituals as the raw material of the social institution. In this case the institution was a real mental hospital. My take on the kind of psychological experiment under discussion is that by studying an artificial social situation they have already failed. The petri dish of a very small mock prison on a campus just doesn't tell us anything very useful. Yet we can see eye catching results being amplified and then becoming part myth and part morality tale. However, the belief that human agency is contingent and flawed, that we often don't know how we know the things we know[1], or whey we do the things we do remains. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylums_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylums_(book) [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Our-Knowledge-Growth-Wittgenstein-Routledge/dp/1138778710 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Our-Knowledge-Growth-Wittgenstein-R...
- LoonyBalloony 8y ago
  I don't think people are drawn to it because it's giving an excuse for bad behavior. The Stanford experiment resonates with a lot of people because it mirrors civilization as a whole (hierarchical class based system) The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.
- ergothus 8y ago
  That's an interesting perspective. I myself "want" the drama to be true not because I want to be unaccountable for my actions, but rather: 1) I want validity that the pressures I feel are normal. Not so that I can give in to them, though I'm sure "excusing" past mistakes would feel good, but so that I feel the difficulty of doing the "right" thing is legit. 2) mostly, however, I want to excuse OTHER people. I want assurances that, however buggy, people aren't individually evil, that something pressures them in such a way that when my judgement of people (as a group) is inaccurate there is a "rational" reason for it. Otherwise I can't explain things like neonazis, gamergaters, certain "news" and their zealots, etc. Without this one supposed flaw of human nature, the existence of these groups become far more terrifying.
  - lloyddobbler 8y ago
    I largely agree with your perspective - with a couple of differences. Most importantly, while I see what you're getting at with #2, I don't think disproving the SPE makes it so you can't explain things like neonazis, etc. The line that resonated with me was: > According to Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, psychologists who co-directed an attempted replication of the Stanford prison experiment in Great Britain in 2001, a critical factor in making people commit atrocities is a leader assuring them that they are acting in the service of a higher moral cause with which they identify — for instance, scientific progress or prison reform. We have been taught that guards abused prisoners in the Stanford prison experiment because of the power of their roles, but Haslam and Reicher argue that their behavior arose instead from their identification with the experimenters, which Jaffe and Zimbardo encouraged at every turn. So I don't think your second statement is disallowed by this article's findings. Most people randomly chosen off the street aren't necessarily evil - but some can be. And those who are can have a profound influence on those who aren't. Especially when there's a concept of a "greater good" on the line. (Insert Godwin's Law subject reference here). For me, that's the big lesson - be suspicious of the "greater good." [edited for formatting]
Sangermaine 8y ago
>> The appeal of the Stanford prison experiment seems to go deeper than its scientific validity, perhaps because it tells us a story about ourselves that we desperately want to believe: that we, as individuals, cannot really be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do. As troubling as it might seem to accept Zimbardo’s fallen vision of human nature, it is also profoundly liberating. It means we’re off the hook. Our actions are determined by circumstance. Our fallibility is situational. Just as the Gospel promised to absolve us of our sins if we would only believe, the SPE offered a form of redemption tailor-made for a scientific era, and we embraced it. This is odd because it's the exact opposite of the way I usually here the SPE narrative discussed: it's not a tale of redemption, it's a condemnation of humanity that purports to show how any of us have monsters inside of us that come out if given the chance.
- empath75 8y ago
  It’s a dispersion of guilt and it allows people who do bad things to go along because the think others would do the same in their position. Lots of people in the world have died rather than to go along with things they felt were wrong. Don’t think that we all have monsters inside because we don’t.
  - partiallypro 8y ago
    Everyone has a different threshold and it seems to largely be a collective behavior, when outside of a group, people may think more critically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_model
forkLding 8y ago
Not the first time for Psychology, I remember my professor dismissing Freud and etc. even though we learnt about him in our textbooks. Not saying that Freud is a fraud (or even Jung or Maslow), but their theories are hard to replicate and have been gradually phased out as a real explanation of events and furthermore their psychiatric/psychotherapy diagnoses are not effective to diagnose actual psychological illnesses, their treatment techniques on the other hand have been invaluable (https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/mental-health-and-the-legacy-of-sigmund-freud/ https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/mental-health-and-the-le...). Psychology is definitely going thru a replication crisis. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_replication_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_...)
- SubiculumCode 8y ago
  Freudian "theory" was not science, it was a catchy narrative.
  - Uhhrrr 8y ago
    When I was assigned "Civilization and its Discontents" in college, I already knew Freud's theories were poorly supported, but it was still pretty convincing while I was reading it.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      That says something about the quality of the writing, but not about the quality of the ideas.
      - Uhhrrr 8y ago
        Exactly.
  - forkLding 8y ago
    Can't really blame him much then, likely only the truly psychotic would have been depicted as mentally ill back then simply because didn't know what psychology was and thus definitely skewed his samples all over the place. Then again, I'm probably just stating another unproven assumption.
neonate 8y ago
Be sure to read to the end where the author brings up his own family's tangential involvement in the Zimbardo saga.
everdev 8y ago
> But Eshelman, who had studied acting throughout high school and college, has always admitted that his accent was just as fake as Korpi’s breakdown. His overarching goal, as he told me in an interview, was simply to help the experiment succeed. There are countless other quotes of guards and prisoners saying they were "just acting". But isn't that equally as powerful? I'm not sure it matters so much why you're locking someone in a closet for 6 hours (just acting, wanting the experiment to succeed, wanting to please your teacher, having sadistic tendencies, etc.), it's that you followed through and performed that action. The fact that you did something you wouldn't normally do might be even more significant. It's one thing if the guards and prisoners all know they're acting, but that doesn't appear to be the case. It sounds as if individuals were acting on their own accord, but unaware what behaviors and instructions were real vs. not real. Even in real life, how many people in the hierarchy of a dictatorship are "just trying to please" the dictator vs. really "buying in" to the philosophy? I guess it matters in terms of trying to change the system in the future, but it doesn't matter that much in evaluating the harm done to the powerless in the past. I don't think power always veers towards dangerous dominant/submissive behavior, but history seems to have an amply supply of evidence that that certainly can be the case, regardless of why it gets there.
- j2kun 8y ago
  It's not the same because the conclusions are about humans becoming sadistic just because they put on a uniform. The whole pitch of the experiment was their behavior was spontaneous, unsolicited, and caused by the setting. I.e., not caused by the experimenters asking the participants to behave a certain way. The Milgram effect (superiors asking you to cause pain because science + authority) has been replicated many times. This is all explained quite well in the article.
  - everdev 8y ago
    > the conclusions are about humans becoming sadistic just because they put on a uniform The experiment was not about how clothing affects behavior but was about presenting a group with power and encouraging them to use it. The uniforms were important in establishing group identity, but not the sole or even primary focus of the experiment.
empath75 8y ago
There were a whole bunch of ‘studies’ done after World War Two that purported to show how it was possible that ‘good people’ could be induced to do bad things. I think the ones that gained wide currency were the ones that most excused truly horrific and servile behavior by individuals. I don’t believe for a second that someone who would torture or abuse or kill someone on the orders of someone else was ever a ‘good person’. Don’t tell me that someone who is talking someone’s child from them right now is a good person. I quit a job just recently working for dhs just because I didn’t want to participate in that kind of behavior even tangentially.
- LarryL 8y ago
  > I don’t believe for a second that someone who would torture or abuse or kill someone on the orders of someone else was ever a ‘good person’ That's easy to say. But context matters a lot! What about this: your family is held hostage, or you live in a dictature where disobedience means at best prison, and often retaliation against your family. Real example: I've met a guy -a political refugee- at work whose daughter was ABDUCTED by the police of his country to put pressure on him! Can you imagine his anguish? Now, you are ordered to go in this room and "extract a confession" from someone or to kill them. What would you do? (Knowing that there are NO CHANCES that you can escape/run without awful consequences at least on your family, it's not a movie). Same for going to war. Many times in history have the poorest been forced to go to war under pain of death (and possible retaliation on their family). What would you do in such a situation? Especially when you are poor and without "connections". Truth is that it's very easy to force people to do awful things by the use of force/coercion. Very few will want to be martyrs or put their family at risk.
  - the_af 8y ago
    Do note that historically, in most cases of torture the torturers weren't themselves under threat, and their families weren't either. This hypothetical doesn't happen in practice. I tend to support the parent commenter's opinion that torturers were never good people to begin with. I can understand murderers, but not torturers, and especially not torturers of people who haven't directly wronged them (e.g. when it's an "interrogation"). Extreme examples such as "but what if your daughter was raped and murdered by your prisoner" tend NOT to be the case of real life scenarios where torture actually happens.
conjecTech 8y ago
I'd just like to reemphasize what conclusions you should and shouldn't draw from an experiment being invalidated. If an experiment is run that says the sky is blue, then its invalidation does not mean that the sky is not blue. It means we no longer have evidence for that conclusion. The correct answer then isn't the negation of the original study's conclusion. The correct conclusion is that we don't know or aren't sure. Likewise, if the SPE is invalid, it doesn't imply that average people aren't capable of horrific behavior - it simply means we have less evidence to determine that than we thought we did.
- whiddershins 8y ago
  Well, the message people got was that students who were knowingly participating in a college psych study became spontaneously sadistic within just a day or two. That feels intuitively ridiculous, and has no evidence I know of to support it, except this study.
  - CamperBob2 8y ago
    The idea behind the study was to try to understand how an entire nation - Germany - could go berserk with hatred and sadism. Scientific or not, the burden of proof lies with those who dispute Zimbardo’s (and Milgram’s) findings, because they have been borne out so many times in so many different contexts. Their work has never been more relevant than it is now, as we witness the rise of Trumpism. What alternative explanations would you propose?
    - shkkmo 8y ago
      1) Milgram's and Zimbardo's findings are very different. Milgram's have been backed up by many replications and are often mis-understood. 2) We have both experimental and factual evidence that shows that Zimbardo's findings were lies. 3) The entire nation of Germany did not go berserk with hatred and sadism. 4) Name one instance where Zimbardo's findings have been born out is "so many different contexts"? The rise and success of Nazism (like most social movements, including 'Trumpism') was the result of a confluence of a number of factors. To pretend that it was just "how people are" is do both people and the truth a disservice.
Zooper 8y ago
But the study's already been repeated all over the world in prisons, so it's reproducible.
- ALittleLight 8y ago
  A confounding factor with real prisons is that (hopefully) most of the prisoners have antisocial tendencies which led to their incarceration and the prisoners and guards are under credible threat of violence from both parties. In other words, are the guards behaving like jerks because their power has corrupted them, or because behaving nicely is likelier to lead to them getting attacked by prisoners? Another consideration is that while I'm sure abuse in prisons is rampant hopefully it's still far from the majority of guards behaving poorly. If that's true, then real life prisons might be evidence against this conclusion as most (hopefully) prison guards wouldn't be jerks.
  - partiallypro 8y ago
    And what about Abu Ghraib?
    - JackCh 8y ago
      What about it? The perpetrators at Abu Ghraib believed the tortured Iraqis deserving of it. In 2012 Lynndie England said, "They weren't innocent. They're trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It's like saying sorry to the enemy." Abu Ghraib doesn't boil down to uniform and a prison setting. The perpetrators believed themselves to be in the right and Iraqis to be deserving of punishment before they were ever placed in the prison setting. It doesn't map onto the SPE at all, despite countless commentators drawing comparisons between the two when the Abu Ghraib story broke.
  - thefifthsetpin 8y ago
    > A confounding factor with real prisons is that (hopefully) most of the prisoners have antisocial tendencies which led to their incarceration and guards are under credible threat of violence from both parties. I suppose we could look at jails, then. They'd mostly be full of people still presumed innocent, and most of those who are guilty aren't guilty of a violent offense. If you just wait a while, you can find out which of those presumed innocent people people were found not guilty. It'd be interesting to see how the guards treated those people.
petermcneeley 8y ago
Im under the impression that this kind of modern experimentation (like Milgram) is considered unethical making future interesting scientific trials impossible. Once we finish "debunking" the poorly orchestrated experiments of the past we will finally be left with the zero knowledge apex of deconstruction that our age so highly prizes.
- smogcutter 8y ago
  Rather than being "debunked", the milgram experiment has been pretty widely replicated.
pacaro 8y ago
I’m more interested in the unquestioning belief that people seem to have with information provided by an authority, especially during the earliest exposure to a subject. As the article states, the SPE is often introduced uncritically in introductory lectures. Uncritically to avoid muddying the waters (presumably) and in an introductory lecture because it is fascinating and likely to capture the imagination of a student (presumably). I’ve encountered unquestioning belief in various degrees of bullshit taught this way, from the tainted views of history taught in elementary school, through to stuff like this in undergraduate education. I think that students are particularly vulnerable to this at an early phase of exposure to a subject because they don’t have enough background to be critical, by the time they get that background this information is ingrained.
- narag 8y ago
  I’m more interested in the unquestioning belief that people seem to have with information provided by an authority Oh, the irony!
- peter303 8y ago
  Certain irony here. Much of education then is a Prison Experiment until students develop the critic thinking skills to evaluate their professor's teachings. Not that we have a binary evaluation here, i.e. the prof is totally right or totaly wrong. More like shades of gray where some stuff is more believable than others.
Bromskloss 8y ago
Um, what was the lie again?
- mrlyc 8y ago
  Zimbardo was an evil man who tried to justify his behaviour by setting up a sham experiment to "prove" that everyone can be evil, given the right circumstances.
tptacek 8y ago
This is a bananas article and kind of makes a case for Zimbardo as a sort of Alex Wakefield of psychology.
- Game_Ender 8y ago
  Who is Alex Wakefield?
  - pvg 8y ago
    Person who published the original (bad) study that set off the anti-vaxers. He just promoted him to an Alex from an Andrew.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      Ugh. Sorry!
harry8 8y ago
I think I'm at the point now where i will consider the whole of psychology a castle of dishonest and incompetent studies until proven otherwise. The usual benefit given to scientists of the assumption that is not Alchemy had to go for psychology. It's too important and the abuse is too widespread. It really seems pervasive in the discipline at this point.
- Karunamon 8y ago
  There's also the reproduction crisis[1], if you weren't aware of it already. When your field can only have less than half of its top papers reproduced in full, something is very wrong with your field. It's to the point where one can safely assume that any psych paper (but especially social psych) is garbage until such time as it's been replicated a time or two. [1]: https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-reproducibility-test-1.18248 https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-...
  - Tycho 8y ago
    And consider this: in psychology we actually have the possibility of running and repeating controlled experiments. Think how bad things must be in other fields where that’s not the case.
  - feanaro 8y ago
    > It's to the point where one can safely assume that any psych paper (but especially social psych) is garbage until such time as it's been replicated a time or two. Good, because it is probable that what we should assume this for any science[1]. [1]: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...
    - neuromantik8086 8y ago
      Everyone assumes that science is filled with neat, well-manicured lab notebooks, pristine methodology and fastidious characters. In reality, the current scientific culture is one of rampant distractions, where pretty much everyone is running around like a beheaded chicken. Woe unto those that might point out that a prominent researcher with tenure isn't using sound methods. That, as well as a generally toxic culture that makes Wall Street look good, was part of why I left. There have been some efforts towards creating a better culture (in particular, I've had my eye on Popper [1] and the "SciOps" movement and Software Carpentry [2], as well as various open access efforts). At the end of the day though, scarcity in terms of funding plus lack of job security plus medieval power dynamics are holding any substantial cultural shift back. [1] http://falsifiable.us/ http://falsifiable.us/ [2] https://software-carpentry.org/ https://software-carpentry.org/
PhilWright 8y ago
I do not understand why a single experiment is considered good enough for research results in the social sciences. A single experiment with unexpected outcomes must be backed up by replication in order to start becoming interesting. Even if you took the SPE at face value when it was first conducted, surely you have to repeat it before deciding if it is valid. What if the outcome only occurs once in every 100 times and they got lucky that first time? Surely that is somewhat important to know. The most disappointing outcome is that nothing has really changed even after all this time. Each researched is only one great result away from making their career.
- deyan 8y ago
  This is a false assumption about how social sciences work. Like in other fields, academics are repeating experiments and trying to (in)validate results, including for SPE. [1] That being said, social sciences != hard sciences in the sense that there are no hard laws because humans are unpredictable. That doesn't mean social sciences are worthless, but it does require that one approaches them with a different mindset than e.g. math or physics. FWIW, I do agree that your criticism regarding the gap that exists from publication to repetition / validation has made many famous. Bombastic-sounding results -> headlines -> public perception -> increased social and academic status of the researchers. By the time the results are repeated and (in)validated it is often too late to reverse that. I don't think that pattern is unique to social sciences however - I keep seeing article after article contradicting each other - e.g. regarding drugs, food, fitness, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Similar_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Sim...
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    What mindset is that, and how exactly is it different?
    - deyan 8y ago
      (Just my 2 cents, your mileage might vary) I think that in the hard sciences, things are very cut and dry - or at least that is the goal of a study. For example, in physics, the goal of experiments is to prove with a very high certainty that something is true or false. Humans on the other hand are unpredictable. So if you run an experiment that says X, it may or may not replicate later, depending on hidden variables and assumptions. Consider the famous marshmallow test. The latest studies suggest that it is not willpower but actually affluence that is the bigger determinant factor. [1] So that means that in future studies, they probably need to consider this variable and design the experiment in a way that they can control for it. What is interesting is that for all the differences and intervening variables, humans can be studied and exhibit very predictable patterns. A good example of that is the study of power. [2] The Prince was written in 1532 and its principle continue to be just as valid today! [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow-test/561779/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmall... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism
yeukhon 8y ago
SPE is a great experiment. I am certainly an outcast from most psychologists to believe that SPE should be allowed. But that’s my belief. The darknest part of a human nature can only be revealed by an experiment like SPE. If you watch the documentary on SPE, you will see the changes. I am fascinated with the minds of humans in the most direct way possible.
- FearNotDaniel 8y ago
  Did you read the article, in full? Carefully, and with a scientific mind? There are several points where the author refers to selective editing, critical facts left out, of documentaries and news reports, in order to support the false narrative. If you watch the documentary, you will see what its authors want you to see; that's not necessarily the same as the truth.
KKKKkkkk1 8y ago
Here's the true experiment: In surveys conducted in 2014 and 2015, Richard Griggs and Jared Bartels each found that nearly every introductory psychology textbook on the market included Zimbardo’s narrative of the experiment, most uncritically. Curious about why the field’s appointed gatekeepers, presumably well-informed about the experiment’s dubious history, would choose to include it nonetheless, I reached out. Three told me they had originally omitted the Stanford prison experiment from their first editions because of concerns about its scientific legitimacy. But even psychology professors are not immune to the forces of social influence: two added it back in under pressure from reviewers and teachers, a third because it was so much in the news after Abu Ghraib.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  In other words, the field just has very low standards for truth, in a scientific sense. This seems to go up and down the field... From academic publishing (replicability crisis) to undergraduate teaching. Psychology just doesn't have a scientific perspective on truth and knowledge. Instead of a need (Abu graib and timely relevance) for knowledge triggering research and the accumulation of knowledge, it triggers the field to accept bogus knowledge because they need something.
  - rusk 8y ago
    I found when I was studying Psychology, that it's very much focused on pragmatics rather than intellectual rigor. i.e. if an explanation helps provide an effective therapeutic model then it's considered "good enough". I'm not saying it's right. In fact in terms of evaluating the field "as a science" it's wrong. I guess that's why it's a BA not a BSc ... probably also why various other more rigorous subfields such as neuroscience have split off to become their own disciplines. I think most people who have studied psychology will get this, and critically evaluating all the bullshit around you should be one of the fundamental skills that you learn. Unfortunately though, things are taken far more literally once they get "out into the open".
    - s-shellfish 8y ago
some_account 8y ago
We can't escape that behavior because we are extremely encouraged to care what others think about us. The entire western culture is about ego, and ego loves to feel part of some team or group. Standing alone is very hard for most people.
- JackCh 8y ago
  Did you read the article? It's about how the SPE was a basically one big lie.
patkai 8y ago
The narrative of the original experiment may be a "lie", but in what way is a Medium article the "truth"? It would be very important to educate and remind ourselves about how science actually works. It does not work with simple lies and truths, it is a path we follow and where we make many missteps. Even if Zimbardo did everything wrong - experiment, documentation, publishing, narrative, conclusions, influence - it is perfectly all right, the big river of science will slowly but steadily float it in the "right" direction.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  If he lied about the experiment and results... It's a lie. Pretty simple.
- FranzFerdiNaN 8y ago
  No its not alright. The idea of science is that things are reproducible and that scientists at least try to be honest about what, why and how they do their experiments. You say that scientists might as well just stop doing anything and just write fake reports. It's all the same after all!
  - patkai 8y ago
    You are right, it is not OK to deliberately lie. What I meant is it's OK from the point of view of science and science will correct these kind of "lies" in the same way it corrects erroneous measurements, documentation errors, misunderstandings, whatever. Scientific papers are actually full of these, and I dare not guess how many of them are written due to publish-or-perish (which are also some sort of lies, as the writer has not much to say, or only something with negligible importance). We could even think about lied about results as viruses which the immune system will handle.
    - royjacobs 8y ago
      What? There's a definite difference between "Whoops, I accidentally measured this wrong back in the day, sorry" vs "I'm covering up that I'm measured this wrong".
walterstucco 8y ago
Matteo Salvini is trying to reproduce the experiment on a mass scale in Italy by tricking the population into thinking we're being invaded and you now are a soldier defending your country, and he's having some success I think that says a lot about the real nature of us italian, and I'm profoundly ashamed to be born one
wruza 8y ago
Watching this thread from yesterday, I feel that HN tries to dismiss not an experiment and its conclusions (which are indeed falsely true and inexact if argumentation against it is true). It tries to dismiss a phenomenon and fix this forever as in “no, we are not like that”. But what Zimbardo seemed to try to conduct is resembling a typical SU prison-camp. Where all the people inhabitating the entire area were given some rules (both law and “thief law”, perverted and mostly uncontrolled) and began to create a social mess. It wasn’t sadistic or directly harmful, but in these conditions people do smart or dumb moves that lead to big trouble (often referred to as “get into the odd”) to themselves or someone other, thus having a power impossible to have in a regular society, along with all long going implications. While most SU prisons were not insane hell movie-likes at first sight, it is still a wrong move to state conditions and effects similar to Zimbardo’s as disproven in a wide sense simply because he messed this one up. Main problem here is that one probably cannot make such an experiment without actually building a prison and hurting people (and that they know their deeds will not be punished). The only reliable sources are 20th century books on civil wars and prison camps, but these are a read too long for HN format, and a common knowledge on that is so vague that isn’t even worth discussing.
- watwut 8y ago
  According to article, researchers themselves pushed guards toward being more aggressive on multiple occasions. E.g. resulting behavior was not just what emerged in absence of external control, but what emerged when you authority explicitly pressures guards to be tough and legitimize or praises that behavior. That is pretty big difference in terms of meaning of results.
  - ZainRiz 8y ago
    How different is that from a new prison guard being pressured by their supervisor or co-workers to be tough on prisoners? It indicates that a bad situation can be created by bad management, and a new person introduced to an existing bad system can turn bad as well.
aaron695 8y ago
Basically psychology has a problem in that, they pick ideas that are probably right then make experiments to prove it, they are more thinkers than scientists. It's good in that Zimbardo publicised what seems to be a very important idea and people really don't seem to get. But becasue it was done in a hogwash way, like a lot of psychology, now he's move onto computer games make young men violent - https://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/23/health/living-well/demise-of-guys/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/23/health/living-well/demise... Which seems to not be true. This is why it's important to debunk this study, because it's leading to other, probably/possibly incorrect ideas through cult of persona rather than science.
fukuro 8y ago
The SPE is kind of like the milgram experiment in the way that people tend to do things they would otherwise not have done when given the green light from an authority. It reminds me of a short story illustrating this beautifuly. (From The Way of Kings) http://www.kurt-anderson.com/main/2036/media/reading/derethil-and-the-wandersail http://www.kurt-anderson.com/main/2036/media/reading/derethi...
dalbasal 8y ago
I think that this needs to be understood in the context of the "replicability crisis" which is particularly critical in the field of psychology. The real question is what other bogus science is being taught to psychology students today. Psychology has always played in multiple ponds. Expirement based social science. Explicitly unscientific^ theory (eg Freud). Quite a lot in the practice/medical aspects. A lot of philosophical approaches. Overall, I think this has added up to a result where when people in the field say "we know X to be true," it's hard to know what they mean, nevermind if they're correct. Do they mean it in the sense that a literary critic means something, or the way a chemist means something. For example: Atlas Shrugged & Animal Farm are both works of fiction and of political "science". This is fine in the frame of what political science is, a non scientific field. No one since Marx has really claimed otherwise. When Marx claimed his theories to be scientific, the discussion that followed actually resulted in very important pieces of modern epistemology: what is science. The critics of Marx were also critics of Freud and the criticism was identical. Psychology though.. it has remained in a sort of no man's land. I know that I at least have really lost confidence in psychology, as an academic field. Practice/therapy is a completely different story. I think there's been a lot of advancement in therapy. I can't help but wonder though, how much it is hindered by bogus "science." ^in the Karl Popper sense
skate22 8y ago
The NSA employees are wrong to spy on us! They should be held accountable! Brb though, my manager wants me to put clicktale on our website. My burndown chart is gonna look so good this week
patkai 8y ago
Could we think about this experiment as a meta-experiment? Zimbardo experimenting on the research community and the public how long we keep something like alive just because it is an attractive story? (I am not defending him!)
ConfusedDog 8y ago
The true experiment is how people come to willingly believe the Stanford Prison Experiment.
bakhy 8y ago
Is it possible that Zimbardo is now legally responsible? He influenced policy in this way, with what seems to be obvious malicious intent, and he also apparently testified in many court cases. Can he be prosecuted for this?
- JackCh 8y ago
  > "He influenced policy in this way, with what seems to be obvious malicious intent" Actually he probably thought he was doing a good thing. He didn't intend to harm people, but to help people (by creating a fraudulent narrative that would work towards the greater goal of prison reform), with enough fame and personal profit to sweeten the deal. It seems likely to me that Zimbardo believes the ends justify the means. Still, it would be satisfying to see him prosecuted for this fraud.
  - bakhy 8y ago
    I may have overstated it, but it seems he's been intentionally lying, including in court... Just that should suffice, regaddless of his reasons.
otakucode 8y ago
Why can't we? Simple. Psychologists refuse to recreate it. They refuse to prove that anything would ever be different. I really find the example of the dude 'faking' and trying to get out of the study an insanely poor choice to try to undermine its credibility. Prisoners, brace yourself for this shocker, don't want to be in prison. That makes it a more legitimate test, not less. If you could make sure every single person participating was missing out on some critical part of their life, and they would go to great lengths to try to escape, that would be an effective experiment of what prison would be like if not filled with criminals but average people under the same pressures.
LoonyBalloony 8y ago
> According to Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, psychologists who co-directed an attempted replication of the Stanford prison experiment in Great Britain in 2001, a critical factor in making people commit atrocities is a leader assuring them that they are acting in the service of a higher moral cause with which they identify The drug war in a nutshell ladies and gentlemen.

422 points by fermigier 8y ago

This is a fascinating article about how much of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment was a sham. > The appeal of the Stanford prison experiment seems to go deeper than its scientific validity, perhaps because it tells us a story about ourselves that we desperately want to believe: that we, as individuals, cannot really be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do. As troubling as it might seem to accept Zimbardo’s fallen vision of human nature, it is also profoundly liberating. It means we’re off the hook. Our actions are determined by circumstance. Our fallibility is situational. Just as the Gospel promised to absolve us of our sins if we would only believe, the SPE offered a form of redemption tailor-made for a scientific era, and we embraced it. It seems that we fell for the narrative fallacy every time this "research" was used as an explanation for behavior in the real world.

firasd 8y ago
Interesting comments about a similarly famous study with a similar gist, the Milgram experiment: "Many other studies, such as Soloman Asch’s famous experiment[1] demonstrating that people will ignore the evidence of their own eyes in conforming to group judgments about line lengths, illustrate the profound effect our environments can have on us. The far more methodologically sound — but still controversial[2] — Milgram experiment demonstrates how prone we are to obedience in certain settings. " [1] https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html [2] https://psmag.com/social-justice/electric-schlock-65377 https://psmag.com/social-justice/electric-schlock-65377
- rossdavidh 8y ago
  I am a bit suspicious of the conclusions drawn from the Asch experiment. The subjects are put in a situation in which they are led to believe that one of two things is true: 1) I am unable to tell which line is longer 2) Every other person in this room is unable to tell which line is longer They are reported to have acted upset, which leads one to think they were not wanting it to be (1), but the only other option (they knew of) was (2), which is, in fact, even less plausible. So, really, in that (very artificial) situation, concluding that they have lost the ability to tell which line is longer, while unlikely, was the least unlikely option. So, they chose to believe (1) over (2). Their only mistake was in not thinking of the possibility that every other person, including the researcher, was trying to deceive them. That's not at all the conclusion that Asch (and others since) have drawn from it. I believe that study could replicate, but I don't think it means what they say it means.
  - Izkata 8y ago
    The issue I have with the Asch experiment is that it also conflates conforming and belonging. External group pressure vs a want to be included. It seems to me to be testing the second while being reported as the first.
  - djsumdog 8y ago
    Vsauce's Mind Field series replicates this experiment, in the traditional sensational way he does everything. It's still pretty interesting to actually watch the people and their facial reactions. Still, draw your own conclusions.
- im3w1l 8y ago
  It's interesting to contrast this with yanny / laurel / dress color
- wallace_f 8y ago
  If we're interested in improving the world -- improving things like human dignity, welfare; and minimizing human suffering -- I think this is one of the most important concepts to understand about human nature. It's the same concept I try to illustrate by noting the NASA Challenger disaster was not a case of an unknown, but one where groupthink murdered 7 astronauts.[1] The desire people have to conform to authority is extreme. I can even think of a remarkable personal example from growing up, when a boy in class was given the punishment of having to sit next to an often-bullied girl. The teacher was not above the bullying, he had conformed to it. That must have had a detrimental effect on a young girl's self esteem. So if we're still murdering, toeturing, and dehumanizing people in order to conform to concepts of authority and hatred, how much have we grown from our past? Isn't this the same concept that we're supposed to disagree with when it came to the Nazis, North Korea, etc.? That we are free and just society, and we fight to defeat those who aren't? 1-https://mobile.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/weekinreview/the-nation-nasa-s-curse-groupthink-is-30-years-old-and-still-going-strong.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/weekinreview/the-natio...
  - PopePompous 8y ago
    I think characterizing the Challenger launch decision as murder is unfair. At worst it was manslaughter.
    - wallace_f 8y ago
      I believe groupthink killed those astronauts. However, I'm not really focusing this argumemt around the idea of bringing leaders at NASA up on murder charges.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  I've watched the whole video of the Milgram experiment. People claim those who were the teachers knew it was fake, but interviews years later have people claiming they really thought they killed the person in the other room. Not to mention his experiment was replicated by several universities around the world[1], although due to modern ethical standards, it would be impossible to reproduce ethically at most universities today[2]. I don't think Milgram falls into the same category, especially with all the work they put in at Harvard in the controls (the learner was a tape recording; so everyone heard the exact same thing. It was the same professor in the room with him; always replicating the same dialog). This is in direct contrast with Vsauce's trolley problem experiment, which had way too small a sample size, and who forced a response for one person by changing the conditions of the experiment (there was no one outside when he tried to get help). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Replications_and_variations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Replication... [2]: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/replicating-milgram https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/replicating-mi...
  - neuromantik8086 8y ago
    There are some folks who are pretty dead set on maligning Milgram alongside Zimbardo. Namely, Gina Perry wrote a book criticizing Milgram and his experiment's validity [1]. I haven't read it, but looking at some of the reviews, it seems most likely that it's a mixture of truth and the typical schlocky scientific journalism I've come to know and revile. [2] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Shock-Machine-psychology-experiments-ebook/dp/B007NOI2YC/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Shock-Machine-psychology-exper... [2] Funny anecdote- when I was still in science (brain imaging) a reporter from a major news outlet interviewed another member of my lab about what brain activity would look like in a dead person's brain. The question was entirely serious.
    - hithereagain 8y ago
      [2] Brain activity appears to continue after people are dead, according to new study. (9 march 2017) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/what-happens-die-brain-activity-life-heart-beating-death-after-eeg-study-research-a7620131.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/what-happens-die-...
trhway 8y ago
> we, as individuals, cannot really be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do. opposite. It shows that we have to be held accountable - without credible threat of such accountability the reprehensible things will be done. >it is also profoundly liberating. It means we’re off the hook. Our actions are determined by circumstance. not even close. It means that person A putting person B in the position of power without proper checks on that power and without effective system of accountability for the power abuse is guilty too of whatever power abuses person B would commit.
- smogcutter 8y ago
  Setting aside that part of the article's point is that it's unclear what (if anything) the experiment shows at all, that's not really a rebuttal. You're agreeing that systems create behavior, and adding on that therefore those in the system need to be restrained with the threat of accountability. But you see how even if you believe the experiment argues that systems need to be held accountable, that still lets individuals off the hook? "It's not my fault, I was only following orders. Someone should have been holding me accountable." In fact, the article has a direct account of Zimbardo's experiment being used to defend a criminal. It turns out later that the defense was largely a lie.
  - trhway 8y ago
    >You're agreeing that systems create behavior i don't think systems create behavior. They do though unleash and amplify. They also can force. I don't think any doctor, with their deeply ingrained "do no harm", would administer a shock in the Milgram for example. > "It's not my fault, I was only following orders. I think following an order backed by a credible punishing force is separate subject. >Someone should have been holding me accountable." That comes as an attempt at defense when you're already being held accountable, and which is basically equivalent to an admission that you've made a error calculating your chances of being held accountable, and it is puzzling to see why/how some reasonable people would still fall for it and accept such admission as a defense whether in legal or in moral/ethical space.
    - 8y ago
mamcx 8y ago
>Just as the Gospel promised to absolve us of our sins if we would only believe Ironic example... and wrong. BTW is not for "believe", but for repent, change the old ways and continusly live good for the rest of life. And have faith... too.
- dang 8y ago
  You're probably right, but please let's not get into an off-topic religious debate. Those turn into flamewars.
  - mamcx 8y ago
    Is not about that, but how persistent some idea can be, because honestly, how fact-check everything?
    - dang 8y ago
      I believe that you didn't mean it to be that, but experience has shown that it turns into that with high probability if the discussion is allowed to proceed.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
grovehaw 8y ago
Ten years earlier a book was published which was a work of sociology based on participant observation, an approach many here would regard as unscientific. It was very much an explanation of behaviour in the real world. Erving Goffman's Asylums [0], in its four essays, identifies the creation of social roles and related rituals as the raw material of the social institution. In this case the institution was a real mental hospital. My take on the kind of psychological experiment under discussion is that by studying an artificial social situation they have already failed. The petri dish of a very small mock prison on a campus just doesn't tell us anything very useful. Yet we can see eye catching results being amplified and then becoming part myth and part morality tale. However, the belief that human agency is contingent and flawed, that we often don't know how we know the things we know[1], or whey we do the things we do remains. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylums_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylums_(book) [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Our-Knowledge-Growth-Wittgenstein-Routledge/dp/1138778710 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Our-Knowledge-Growth-Wittgenstein-R...
LoonyBalloony 8y ago
I don't think people are drawn to it because it's giving an excuse for bad behavior. The Stanford experiment resonates with a lot of people because it mirrors civilization as a whole (hierarchical class based system) The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.
ergothus 8y ago
That's an interesting perspective. I myself "want" the drama to be true not because I want to be unaccountable for my actions, but rather: 1) I want validity that the pressures I feel are normal. Not so that I can give in to them, though I'm sure "excusing" past mistakes would feel good, but so that I feel the difficulty of doing the "right" thing is legit. 2) mostly, however, I want to excuse OTHER people. I want assurances that, however buggy, people aren't individually evil, that something pressures them in such a way that when my judgement of people (as a group) is inaccurate there is a "rational" reason for it. Otherwise I can't explain things like neonazis, gamergaters, certain "news" and their zealots, etc. Without this one supposed flaw of human nature, the existence of these groups become far more terrifying.
- lloyddobbler 8y ago
  I largely agree with your perspective - with a couple of differences. Most importantly, while I see what you're getting at with #2, I don't think disproving the SPE makes it so you can't explain things like neonazis, etc. The line that resonated with me was: > According to Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, psychologists who co-directed an attempted replication of the Stanford prison experiment in Great Britain in 2001, a critical factor in making people commit atrocities is a leader assuring them that they are acting in the service of a higher moral cause with which they identify — for instance, scientific progress or prison reform. We have been taught that guards abused prisoners in the Stanford prison experiment because of the power of their roles, but Haslam and Reicher argue that their behavior arose instead from their identification with the experimenters, which Jaffe and Zimbardo encouraged at every turn. So I don't think your second statement is disallowed by this article's findings. Most people randomly chosen off the street aren't necessarily evil - but some can be. And those who are can have a profound influence on those who aren't. Especially when there's a concept of a "greater good" on the line. (Insert Godwin's Law subject reference here). For me, that's the big lesson - be suspicious of the "greater good." [edited for formatting]

Sangermaine 8y ago

>> The appeal of the Stanford prison experiment seems to go deeper than its scientific validity, perhaps because it tells us a story about ourselves that we desperately want to believe: that we, as individuals, cannot really be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do. As troubling as it might seem to accept Zimbardo’s fallen vision of human nature, it is also profoundly liberating. It means we’re off the hook. Our actions are determined by circumstance. Our fallibility is situational. Just as the Gospel promised to absolve us of our sins if we would only believe, the SPE offered a form of redemption tailor-made for a scientific era, and we embraced it. This is odd because it's the exact opposite of the way I usually here the SPE narrative discussed: it's not a tale of redemption, it's a condemnation of humanity that purports to show how any of us have monsters inside of us that come out if given the chance.

empath75 8y ago
It’s a dispersion of guilt and it allows people who do bad things to go along because the think others would do the same in their position. Lots of people in the world have died rather than to go along with things they felt were wrong. Don’t think that we all have monsters inside because we don’t.
- partiallypro 8y ago
  Everyone has a different threshold and it seems to largely be a collective behavior, when outside of a group, people may think more critically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_model

forkLding 8y ago

Not the first time for Psychology, I remember my professor dismissing Freud and etc. even though we learnt about him in our textbooks. Not saying that Freud is a fraud (or even Jung or Maslow), but their theories are hard to replicate and have been gradually phased out as a real explanation of events and furthermore their psychiatric/psychotherapy diagnoses are not effective to diagnose actual psychological illnesses, their treatment techniques on the other hand have been invaluable (https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/mental-health-and-the-legacy-of-sigmund-freud/ https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/mental-health-and-the-le...). Psychology is definitely going thru a replication crisis. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_replication_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology_...)

SubiculumCode 8y ago
Freudian "theory" was not science, it was a catchy narrative.
- Uhhrrr 8y ago
  When I was assigned "Civilization and its Discontents" in college, I already knew Freud's theories were poorly supported, but it was still pretty convincing while I was reading it.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    That says something about the quality of the writing, but not about the quality of the ideas.
    - Uhhrrr 8y ago
      Exactly.
- forkLding 8y ago
  Can't really blame him much then, likely only the truly psychotic would have been depicted as mentally ill back then simply because didn't know what psychology was and thus definitely skewed his samples all over the place. Then again, I'm probably just stating another unproven assumption.

neonate 8y ago

Be sure to read to the end where the author brings up his own family's tangential involvement in the Zimbardo saga.

everdev 8y ago

> But Eshelman, who had studied acting throughout high school and college, has always admitted that his accent was just as fake as Korpi’s breakdown. His overarching goal, as he told me in an interview, was simply to help the experiment succeed. There are countless other quotes of guards and prisoners saying they were "just acting". But isn't that equally as powerful? I'm not sure it matters so much why you're locking someone in a closet for 6 hours (just acting, wanting the experiment to succeed, wanting to please your teacher, having sadistic tendencies, etc.), it's that you followed through and performed that action. The fact that you did something you wouldn't normally do might be even more significant. It's one thing if the guards and prisoners all know they're acting, but that doesn't appear to be the case. It sounds as if individuals were acting on their own accord, but unaware what behaviors and instructions were real vs. not real. Even in real life, how many people in the hierarchy of a dictatorship are "just trying to please" the dictator vs. really "buying in" to the philosophy? I guess it matters in terms of trying to change the system in the future, but it doesn't matter that much in evaluating the harm done to the powerless in the past. I don't think power always veers towards dangerous dominant/submissive behavior, but history seems to have an amply supply of evidence that that certainly can be the case, regardless of why it gets there.

j2kun 8y ago
It's not the same because the conclusions are about humans becoming sadistic just because they put on a uniform. The whole pitch of the experiment was their behavior was spontaneous, unsolicited, and caused by the setting. I.e., not caused by the experimenters asking the participants to behave a certain way. The Milgram effect (superiors asking you to cause pain because science + authority) has been replicated many times. This is all explained quite well in the article.
- everdev 8y ago
  > the conclusions are about humans becoming sadistic just because they put on a uniform The experiment was not about how clothing affects behavior but was about presenting a group with power and encouraging them to use it. The uniforms were important in establishing group identity, but not the sole or even primary focus of the experiment.

empath75 8y ago

There were a whole bunch of ‘studies’ done after World War Two that purported to show how it was possible that ‘good people’ could be induced to do bad things. I think the ones that gained wide currency were the ones that most excused truly horrific and servile behavior by individuals. I don’t believe for a second that someone who would torture or abuse or kill someone on the orders of someone else was ever a ‘good person’. Don’t tell me that someone who is talking someone’s child from them right now is a good person. I quit a job just recently working for dhs just because I didn’t want to participate in that kind of behavior even tangentially.

LarryL 8y ago
> I don’t believe for a second that someone who would torture or abuse or kill someone on the orders of someone else was ever a ‘good person’ That's easy to say. But context matters a lot! What about this: your family is held hostage, or you live in a dictature where disobedience means at best prison, and often retaliation against your family. Real example: I've met a guy -a political refugee- at work whose daughter was ABDUCTED by the police of his country to put pressure on him! Can you imagine his anguish? Now, you are ordered to go in this room and "extract a confession" from someone or to kill them. What would you do? (Knowing that there are NO CHANCES that you can escape/run without awful consequences at least on your family, it's not a movie). Same for going to war. Many times in history have the poorest been forced to go to war under pain of death (and possible retaliation on their family). What would you do in such a situation? Especially when you are poor and without "connections". Truth is that it's very easy to force people to do awful things by the use of force/coercion. Very few will want to be martyrs or put their family at risk.
- the_af 8y ago
  Do note that historically, in most cases of torture the torturers weren't themselves under threat, and their families weren't either. This hypothetical doesn't happen in practice. I tend to support the parent commenter's opinion that torturers were never good people to begin with. I can understand murderers, but not torturers, and especially not torturers of people who haven't directly wronged them (e.g. when it's an "interrogation"). Extreme examples such as "but what if your daughter was raped and murdered by your prisoner" tend NOT to be the case of real life scenarios where torture actually happens.

conjecTech 8y ago

I'd just like to reemphasize what conclusions you should and shouldn't draw from an experiment being invalidated. If an experiment is run that says the sky is blue, then its invalidation does not mean that the sky is not blue. It means we no longer have evidence for that conclusion. The correct answer then isn't the negation of the original study's conclusion. The correct conclusion is that we don't know or aren't sure. Likewise, if the SPE is invalid, it doesn't imply that average people aren't capable of horrific behavior - it simply means we have less evidence to determine that than we thought we did.

whiddershins 8y ago
Well, the message people got was that students who were knowingly participating in a college psych study became spontaneously sadistic within just a day or two. That feels intuitively ridiculous, and has no evidence I know of to support it, except this study.
- CamperBob2 8y ago
  The idea behind the study was to try to understand how an entire nation - Germany - could go berserk with hatred and sadism. Scientific or not, the burden of proof lies with those who dispute Zimbardo’s (and Milgram’s) findings, because they have been borne out so many times in so many different contexts. Their work has never been more relevant than it is now, as we witness the rise of Trumpism. What alternative explanations would you propose?
  - shkkmo 8y ago
    1) Milgram's and Zimbardo's findings are very different. Milgram's have been backed up by many replications and are often mis-understood. 2) We have both experimental and factual evidence that shows that Zimbardo's findings were lies. 3) The entire nation of Germany did not go berserk with hatred and sadism. 4) Name one instance where Zimbardo's findings have been born out is "so many different contexts"? The rise and success of Nazism (like most social movements, including 'Trumpism') was the result of a confluence of a number of factors. To pretend that it was just "how people are" is do both people and the truth a disservice.

Zooper 8y ago

But the study's already been repeated all over the world in prisons, so it's reproducible.

ALittleLight 8y ago
A confounding factor with real prisons is that (hopefully) most of the prisoners have antisocial tendencies which led to their incarceration and the prisoners and guards are under credible threat of violence from both parties. In other words, are the guards behaving like jerks because their power has corrupted them, or because behaving nicely is likelier to lead to them getting attacked by prisoners? Another consideration is that while I'm sure abuse in prisons is rampant hopefully it's still far from the majority of guards behaving poorly. If that's true, then real life prisons might be evidence against this conclusion as most (hopefully) prison guards wouldn't be jerks.
- partiallypro 8y ago
  And what about Abu Ghraib?
  - JackCh 8y ago
    What about it? The perpetrators at Abu Ghraib believed the tortured Iraqis deserving of it. In 2012 Lynndie England said, "They weren't innocent. They're trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It's like saying sorry to the enemy." Abu Ghraib doesn't boil down to uniform and a prison setting. The perpetrators believed themselves to be in the right and Iraqis to be deserving of punishment before they were ever placed in the prison setting. It doesn't map onto the SPE at all, despite countless commentators drawing comparisons between the two when the Abu Ghraib story broke.
- thefifthsetpin 8y ago
  > A confounding factor with real prisons is that (hopefully) most of the prisoners have antisocial tendencies which led to their incarceration and guards are under credible threat of violence from both parties. I suppose we could look at jails, then. They'd mostly be full of people still presumed innocent, and most of those who are guilty aren't guilty of a violent offense. If you just wait a while, you can find out which of those presumed innocent people people were found not guilty. It'd be interesting to see how the guards treated those people.

petermcneeley 8y ago

Im under the impression that this kind of modern experimentation (like Milgram) is considered unethical making future interesting scientific trials impossible. Once we finish "debunking" the poorly orchestrated experiments of the past we will finally be left with the zero knowledge apex of deconstruction that our age so highly prizes.

smogcutter 8y ago
Rather than being "debunked", the milgram experiment has been pretty widely replicated.

pacaro 8y ago

I’m more interested in the unquestioning belief that people seem to have with information provided by an authority, especially during the earliest exposure to a subject. As the article states, the SPE is often introduced uncritically in introductory lectures. Uncritically to avoid muddying the waters (presumably) and in an introductory lecture because it is fascinating and likely to capture the imagination of a student (presumably). I’ve encountered unquestioning belief in various degrees of bullshit taught this way, from the tainted views of history taught in elementary school, through to stuff like this in undergraduate education. I think that students are particularly vulnerable to this at an early phase of exposure to a subject because they don’t have enough background to be critical, by the time they get that background this information is ingrained.

narag 8y ago
I’m more interested in the unquestioning belief that people seem to have with information provided by an authority Oh, the irony!
peter303 8y ago
Certain irony here. Much of education then is a Prison Experiment until students develop the critic thinking skills to evaluate their professor's teachings. Not that we have a binary evaluation here, i.e. the prof is totally right or totaly wrong. More like shades of gray where some stuff is more believable than others.

Bromskloss 8y ago

Um, what was the lie again?

mrlyc 8y ago
Zimbardo was an evil man who tried to justify his behaviour by setting up a sham experiment to "prove" that everyone can be evil, given the right circumstances.

tptacek 8y ago

This is a bananas article and kind of makes a case for Zimbardo as a sort of Alex Wakefield of psychology.

Game_Ender 8y ago
Who is Alex Wakefield?
- pvg 8y ago
  Person who published the original (bad) study that set off the anti-vaxers. He just promoted him to an Alex from an Andrew.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Ugh. Sorry!

harry8 8y ago

I think I'm at the point now where i will consider the whole of psychology a castle of dishonest and incompetent studies until proven otherwise. The usual benefit given to scientists of the assumption that is not Alchemy had to go for psychology. It's too important and the abuse is too widespread. It really seems pervasive in the discipline at this point.

Karunamon 8y ago
There's also the reproduction crisis[1], if you weren't aware of it already. When your field can only have less than half of its top papers reproduced in full, something is very wrong with your field. It's to the point where one can safely assume that any psych paper (but especially social psych) is garbage until such time as it's been replicated a time or two. [1]: https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-reproducibility-test-1.18248 https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-...
- Tycho 8y ago
  And consider this: in psychology we actually have the possibility of running and repeating controlled experiments. Think how bad things must be in other fields where that’s not the case.
- feanaro 8y ago
  > It's to the point where one can safely assume that any psych paper (but especially social psych) is garbage until such time as it's been replicated a time or two. Good, because it is probable that what we should assume this for any science[1]. [1]: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...
  - neuromantik8086 8y ago
    Everyone assumes that science is filled with neat, well-manicured lab notebooks, pristine methodology and fastidious characters. In reality, the current scientific culture is one of rampant distractions, where pretty much everyone is running around like a beheaded chicken. Woe unto those that might point out that a prominent researcher with tenure isn't using sound methods. That, as well as a generally toxic culture that makes Wall Street look good, was part of why I left. There have been some efforts towards creating a better culture (in particular, I've had my eye on Popper [1] and the "SciOps" movement and Software Carpentry [2], as well as various open access efforts). At the end of the day though, scarcity in terms of funding plus lack of job security plus medieval power dynamics are holding any substantial cultural shift back. [1] http://falsifiable.us/ http://falsifiable.us/ [2] https://software-carpentry.org/ https://software-carpentry.org/

PhilWright 8y ago

I do not understand why a single experiment is considered good enough for research results in the social sciences. A single experiment with unexpected outcomes must be backed up by replication in order to start becoming interesting. Even if you took the SPE at face value when it was first conducted, surely you have to repeat it before deciding if it is valid. What if the outcome only occurs once in every 100 times and they got lucky that first time? Surely that is somewhat important to know. The most disappointing outcome is that nothing has really changed even after all this time. Each researched is only one great result away from making their career.

deyan 8y ago
This is a false assumption about how social sciences work. Like in other fields, academics are repeating experiments and trying to (in)validate results, including for SPE. [1] That being said, social sciences != hard sciences in the sense that there are no hard laws because humans are unpredictable. That doesn't mean social sciences are worthless, but it does require that one approaches them with a different mindset than e.g. math or physics. FWIW, I do agree that your criticism regarding the gap that exists from publication to repetition / validation has made many famous. Bombastic-sounding results -> headlines -> public perception -> increased social and academic status of the researchers. By the time the results are repeated and (in)validated it is often too late to reverse that. I don't think that pattern is unique to social sciences however - I keep seeing article after article contradicting each other - e.g. regarding drugs, food, fitness, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Similar_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Sim...
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  What mindset is that, and how exactly is it different?
  - deyan 8y ago
    (Just my 2 cents, your mileage might vary) I think that in the hard sciences, things are very cut and dry - or at least that is the goal of a study. For example, in physics, the goal of experiments is to prove with a very high certainty that something is true or false. Humans on the other hand are unpredictable. So if you run an experiment that says X, it may or may not replicate later, depending on hidden variables and assumptions. Consider the famous marshmallow test. The latest studies suggest that it is not willpower but actually affluence that is the bigger determinant factor. [1] So that means that in future studies, they probably need to consider this variable and design the experiment in a way that they can control for it. What is interesting is that for all the differences and intervening variables, humans can be studied and exhibit very predictable patterns. A good example of that is the study of power. [2] The Prince was written in 1532 and its principle continue to be just as valid today! [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow-test/561779/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmall... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism

yeukhon 8y ago

SPE is a great experiment. I am certainly an outcast from most psychologists to believe that SPE should be allowed. But that’s my belief. The darknest part of a human nature can only be revealed by an experiment like SPE. If you watch the documentary on SPE, you will see the changes. I am fascinated with the minds of humans in the most direct way possible.

FearNotDaniel 8y ago
Did you read the article, in full? Carefully, and with a scientific mind? There are several points where the author refers to selective editing, critical facts left out, of documentaries and news reports, in order to support the false narrative. If you watch the documentary, you will see what its authors want you to see; that's not necessarily the same as the truth.

KKKKkkkk1 8y ago

Here's the true experiment: In surveys conducted in 2014 and 2015, Richard Griggs and Jared Bartels each found that nearly every introductory psychology textbook on the market included Zimbardo’s narrative of the experiment, most uncritically. Curious about why the field’s appointed gatekeepers, presumably well-informed about the experiment’s dubious history, would choose to include it nonetheless, I reached out. Three told me they had originally omitted the Stanford prison experiment from their first editions because of concerns about its scientific legitimacy. But even psychology professors are not immune to the forces of social influence: two added it back in under pressure from reviewers and teachers, a third because it was so much in the news after Abu Ghraib.

dalbasal 8y ago
In other words, the field just has very low standards for truth, in a scientific sense. This seems to go up and down the field... From academic publishing (replicability crisis) to undergraduate teaching. Psychology just doesn't have a scientific perspective on truth and knowledge. Instead of a need (Abu graib and timely relevance) for knowledge triggering research and the accumulation of knowledge, it triggers the field to accept bogus knowledge because they need something.
- rusk 8y ago
  I found when I was studying Psychology, that it's very much focused on pragmatics rather than intellectual rigor. i.e. if an explanation helps provide an effective therapeutic model then it's considered "good enough". I'm not saying it's right. In fact in terms of evaluating the field "as a science" it's wrong. I guess that's why it's a BA not a BSc ... probably also why various other more rigorous subfields such as neuroscience have split off to become their own disciplines. I think most people who have studied psychology will get this, and critically evaluating all the bullshit around you should be one of the fundamental skills that you learn. Unfortunately though, things are taken far more literally once they get "out into the open".
  - s-shellfish 8y ago

some_account 8y ago

We can't escape that behavior because we are extremely encouraged to care what others think about us. The entire western culture is about ego, and ego loves to feel part of some team or group. Standing alone is very hard for most people.

JackCh 8y ago
Did you read the article? It's about how the SPE was a basically one big lie.

patkai 8y ago

The narrative of the original experiment may be a "lie", but in what way is a Medium article the "truth"? It would be very important to educate and remind ourselves about how science actually works. It does not work with simple lies and truths, it is a path we follow and where we make many missteps. Even if Zimbardo did everything wrong - experiment, documentation, publishing, narrative, conclusions, influence - it is perfectly all right, the big river of science will slowly but steadily float it in the "right" direction.

IshKebab 8y ago
If he lied about the experiment and results... It's a lie. Pretty simple.
FranzFerdiNaN 8y ago
No its not alright. The idea of science is that things are reproducible and that scientists at least try to be honest about what, why and how they do their experiments. You say that scientists might as well just stop doing anything and just write fake reports. It's all the same after all!
- patkai 8y ago
  You are right, it is not OK to deliberately lie. What I meant is it's OK from the point of view of science and science will correct these kind of "lies" in the same way it corrects erroneous measurements, documentation errors, misunderstandings, whatever. Scientific papers are actually full of these, and I dare not guess how many of them are written due to publish-or-perish (which are also some sort of lies, as the writer has not much to say, or only something with negligible importance). We could even think about lied about results as viruses which the immune system will handle.
  - royjacobs 8y ago
    What? There's a definite difference between "Whoops, I accidentally measured this wrong back in the day, sorry" vs "I'm covering up that I'm measured this wrong".

walterstucco 8y ago

Matteo Salvini is trying to reproduce the experiment on a mass scale in Italy by tricking the population into thinking we're being invaded and you now are a soldier defending your country, and he's having some success I think that says a lot about the real nature of us italian, and I'm profoundly ashamed to be born one

wruza 8y ago

Watching this thread from yesterday, I feel that HN tries to dismiss not an experiment and its conclusions (which are indeed falsely true and inexact if argumentation against it is true). It tries to dismiss a phenomenon and fix this forever as in “no, we are not like that”. But what Zimbardo seemed to try to conduct is resembling a typical SU prison-camp. Where all the people inhabitating the entire area were given some rules (both law and “thief law”, perverted and mostly uncontrolled) and began to create a social mess. It wasn’t sadistic or directly harmful, but in these conditions people do smart or dumb moves that lead to big trouble (often referred to as “get into the odd”) to themselves or someone other, thus having a power impossible to have in a regular society, along with all long going implications. While most SU prisons were not insane hell movie-likes at first sight, it is still a wrong move to state conditions and effects similar to Zimbardo’s as disproven in a wide sense simply because he messed this one up. Main problem here is that one probably cannot make such an experiment without actually building a prison and hurting people (and that they know their deeds will not be punished). The only reliable sources are 20th century books on civil wars and prison camps, but these are a read too long for HN format, and a common knowledge on that is so vague that isn’t even worth discussing.

watwut 8y ago
According to article, researchers themselves pushed guards toward being more aggressive on multiple occasions. E.g. resulting behavior was not just what emerged in absence of external control, but what emerged when you authority explicitly pressures guards to be tough and legitimize or praises that behavior. That is pretty big difference in terms of meaning of results.
- ZainRiz 8y ago
  How different is that from a new prison guard being pressured by their supervisor or co-workers to be tough on prisoners? It indicates that a bad situation can be created by bad management, and a new person introduced to an existing bad system can turn bad as well.

aaron695 8y ago

Basically psychology has a problem in that, they pick ideas that are probably right then make experiments to prove it, they are more thinkers than scientists. It's good in that Zimbardo publicised what seems to be a very important idea and people really don't seem to get. But becasue it was done in a hogwash way, like a lot of psychology, now he's move onto computer games make young men violent - https://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/23/health/living-well/demise-of-guys/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/23/health/living-well/demise... Which seems to not be true. This is why it's important to debunk this study, because it's leading to other, probably/possibly incorrect ideas through cult of persona rather than science.

fukuro 8y ago

The SPE is kind of like the milgram experiment in the way that people tend to do things they would otherwise not have done when given the green light from an authority. It reminds me of a short story illustrating this beautifuly. (From The Way of Kings) http://www.kurt-anderson.com/main/2036/media/reading/derethil-and-the-wandersail http://www.kurt-anderson.com/main/2036/media/reading/derethi...

dalbasal 8y ago

I think that this needs to be understood in the context of the "replicability crisis" which is particularly critical in the field of psychology. The real question is what other bogus science is being taught to psychology students today. Psychology has always played in multiple ponds. Expirement based social science. Explicitly unscientific^ theory (eg Freud). Quite a lot in the practice/medical aspects. A lot of philosophical approaches. Overall, I think this has added up to a result where when people in the field say "we know X to be true," it's hard to know what they mean, nevermind if they're correct. Do they mean it in the sense that a literary critic means something, or the way a chemist means something. For example: Atlas Shrugged & Animal Farm are both works of fiction and of political "science". This is fine in the frame of what political science is, a non scientific field. No one since Marx has really claimed otherwise. When Marx claimed his theories to be scientific, the discussion that followed actually resulted in very important pieces of modern epistemology: what is science. The critics of Marx were also critics of Freud and the criticism was identical. Psychology though.. it has remained in a sort of no man's land. I know that I at least have really lost confidence in psychology, as an academic field. Practice/therapy is a completely different story. I think there's been a lot of advancement in therapy. I can't help but wonder though, how much it is hindered by bogus "science." ^in the Karl Popper sense

skate22 8y ago

The NSA employees are wrong to spy on us! They should be held accountable! Brb though, my manager wants me to put clicktale on our website. My burndown chart is gonna look so good this week

patkai 8y ago

Could we think about this experiment as a meta-experiment? Zimbardo experimenting on the research community and the public how long we keep something like alive just because it is an attractive story? (I am not defending him!)

ConfusedDog 8y ago

The true experiment is how people come to willingly believe the Stanford Prison Experiment.

bakhy 8y ago

Is it possible that Zimbardo is now legally responsible? He influenced policy in this way, with what seems to be obvious malicious intent, and he also apparently testified in many court cases. Can he be prosecuted for this?

JackCh 8y ago
> "He influenced policy in this way, with what seems to be obvious malicious intent" Actually he probably thought he was doing a good thing. He didn't intend to harm people, but to help people (by creating a fraudulent narrative that would work towards the greater goal of prison reform), with enough fame and personal profit to sweeten the deal. It seems likely to me that Zimbardo believes the ends justify the means. Still, it would be satisfying to see him prosecuted for this fraud.
- bakhy 8y ago
  I may have overstated it, but it seems he's been intentionally lying, including in court... Just that should suffice, regaddless of his reasons.

otakucode 8y ago

Why can't we? Simple. Psychologists refuse to recreate it. They refuse to prove that anything would ever be different. I really find the example of the dude 'faking' and trying to get out of the study an insanely poor choice to try to undermine its credibility. Prisoners, brace yourself for this shocker, don't want to be in prison. That makes it a more legitimate test, not less. If you could make sure every single person participating was missing out on some critical part of their life, and they would go to great lengths to try to escape, that would be an effective experiment of what prison would be like if not filled with criminals but average people under the same pressures.

LoonyBalloony 8y ago

> According to Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, psychologists who co-directed an attempted replication of the Stanford prison experiment in Great Britain in 2001, a critical factor in making people commit atrocities is a leader assuring them that they are acting in the service of a higher moral cause with which they identify The drug war in a nutshell ladies and gentlemen.