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Hoping The New Stanford Prison Experiment on Netflix would offer real psychological insights? Expect to be disappointed by this flimsy reality show disguised as science.
Ever since it was conducted in the 1970s, the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) has become something of a cautionary tale for psychologists. While it was presented as this landmark demonstration of the corrupting influence of power and authority, the study has also gone on to become a poster child for experimental ethical violations.
Led by Philip Zimbardo, the study aimed to investigate how situational factors, particularly social roles and institutional environments, influence the behavior of ordinary humans.
To do so, a mock prison was constructed in the basement of Stanford’s psychology building, complete with prison cells, a solitary confinement area, and an observation space. All participants (only males) were randomly assigned to either the role of guard or prisoner, with guards allegedly being told not to resort to violence to maintain order.
What followed, however, was far from an outcome anyone had anticipated. Guards increasingly resorted to humiliation, intimidation, and psychological abuse while several prisoners experienced severe emotional distress. In consequence, this experiment, which was intended to run for fourteen days, was forced to terminate after just six.
Initially, Zimbardo interpreted the study’s findings as evidence that situational forces could outweigh personality characteristics and morality in shaping behavior. However, this later evolved into a broader argument that institutional systems can create environments that encourage ordinary individuals to commit acts of cruelty.
With an increased rate of political conflicts like riots and wars at that time, he went on to push the similarities between his experiment and such acts of political violence, particularly the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
Regardless, 50 years later, this narrative began to unravel when archival evidence was dug up, challenging the experiment’s credibility. Audio recordings revealed that Zimbardo and his team had explicitly instructed the guards to be tough and instill fear. This contradicted the initial claim that their behavior was a result of a natural reaction to power and authority.
Moreover, the prisoners were also subjected to humiliating treatment, including strip searches, being bound by chains, and verbal abuse. Even Douglas Korpi, whose infamous psychological breakdown became one of the study’s defining moments, later admitted that his outburst was just an attempt to convince researchers to let him leave, as participants were not allowed to do so.
Interestingly, however, was the fact that the experiment’s early termination came after Zimbardo’s then girlfriend, Christina Maslach, acting as an external observer, witnessed the inhumane conditions, and confronted him about the prisoners’ treatment.
Taken together, this evidence seriously undermined the scientific credibility of the SPE, challenging the very conclusions that made it famous. Yet, despite all this, its legacy continues to live on, and this is where Netflix comes in.
Titled The New Stanford Prison Experiment, the platform recently released a six-episode miniseries that aimed to recreate the premise of the original experiment with a fresh group of 30 participants.
Filmed inside a decommissioned wing of an active prison in Georgia, a Harvard-based behavioural psychologist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and a retired corrections officer were positioned to monitor and analyse the participants’ behavior.
But here’s the problem: while the series starts out as a peek into psychological science, viewers soon realise that the reboot is just a reality show dressed up as an experiment. And this becomes increasingly apparent as the series progresses.
