Last Wednesday, I started watching Netflix’s new reality show, The New Stanford Prison Experiment. The six-episode series re-creates the central premise of Philip Zimbardo’s original 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, one of the most famous social science investigations ever conducted, which randomly assigned 24 college-age participants to the roles of prisoners—confined in a simulated jail—and guards—who were given uniforms, authority, and the responsibility to maintain order. The researchers wanted to investigate the question of whether abusive behavior derives from an individual’s personality, or whether ordinary people become abusive simply because they are placed in positions of power.
The Netflix series is entertaining. In total, 30 Americans are invited to a real-life prison in Georgia; eight members of the group are assigned to be guards, while 22 are prisoners. As a social scientist, I have quibbles about the experiment design: A proper study would compare different groups with varying degrees of power, in a treatment and control format. But, of course, this is a television show, meant to entertain—which it does, while also providing some fascinating insights into human behavior. (Some spoilers follow.)
The New Stanford Prison Experiment corrects many of the flaws of the original experiment, which resulted in most of the guards becoming increasingly tyrannical and subjecting prisoners to humiliation and arbitrary punishment, while the prisoners became depressed and helpless. The original was terminated after just six days (of the intended 14) because of the escalating maltreatment and distress. The general conclusion was that ordinary, healthy people can become cruel, abusive, and authoritarian when placed in social situations that give them power over others.