A decade after Milgram’s obedience experiments his high school classmate Philip Zimbardo devised the Stanford prison experiment o examine another aspect of what makes people act badly. The 24 participants, students at Stanford University, were randomly divided into two groups, guards and prisoners. Each group was assigned roles, and each participant was given a fake name. The prisoner role had them wear uniforms, sunglasses, whistles, and handcuffs, along with an ankle chain. They were also given a false identity card and told they would be arrested if they tried to escape. The guards, however, wore regular clothes, carried no weapons, and had no authority over their charges.
In the first week of the study, both guards and prisoners alike adapted to their roles. While the guards grew increasingly brutal and the prisoners more rebellious, everyone went about their daily lives in their respective sections of the prison. Zimbardo had expected the experiment to last two weeks, but within just days, he concluded his research prematurely due to the extreme stress being placed upon the participants.
Once released and asked whether they thought they could behave better under similar circumstances in the future. While only about half said yes, the researchers found that those who had taken on the guard role had behaved worse than before.
