This seems to understate the deception of the study. Many of the individuals involved in the study have spoke of it. You can find plenty of quotes on the Wiki p

This seems to understate the deception of the study. Many of the individuals involved in the study have spoke of it. You can find plenty of quotes on the Wiki page [1] and many others elsewhere as well. Everybody was coached on their roles, and even the prisoners also saw it as a sort of improv scenario. The individual who was famously filmed 'breaking down' claiming "Jesus Christ, I'm burning up inside!" and "I can't stand another night! I just can't take it anymore!" has been framed as an example of a mental collapse from the study. The individual himself however has stated that he thought he would have been allowed to continues his studies as a prisoner - but that was not the case. So he faked a mental collapse to get out of the experiment early (after 36 hours) and get back to his studies. --- As an aside this experiment shows how absolutely crucial objective third parties replicating even keystone studies from reputable institutions is. The one thing that's completely clear is that Zimbardo had predetermined his conclusion and he was going to do anything to get it. That he resorted to something like this (while claiming it was all organic) is far more egregious than an researcher p-hacking or even just outright faking results. That there's no major system for replication means much of what we know about social and even physiological (clinical studies have shown major issues with reproducibility) science could be completely wrong. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Criticism_and_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Cri...