Stanford Prison Experiment
Name__________________________________________ Period ______
Central question of the experiment (answer this before viewing the documentary):
1. “Does the situation outside of you—the institution—come to control your behavior, or do the
things inside of you—your attitude, your values, your morality—allow you to rise above a
negative environment?” –Philip G. Zimbardo
Stanford Prison Experiment Introduction from http://www.prisonexp.org/
“What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does
evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life
conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.
“Our study of prison life began with an average group of healthy, intelligent, middle-class males.
These boys were arbitrarily divided into two groups by a flip of the coin. Half were randomly assigned to be
guards, the other to be prisoners. It is important to remember that at the beginning of our experiment there
were no differences between boys assigned to be a prisoner and boys assigned to be a guard.”
Learn about the Stanford Prison Experiment:
Watch the BBC Documentary: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=677084988379129606#
OR Read about the experiment: http://www.prisonexp.org/
2. Backgound: What had Milgrim’s study shown?
3. Consider the psychological consequences of stripping, delousing, and shaving the heads of
prisoners or members of the military. What transformations take place when people go through
an experience like this?
4. During the experiment, how did the prisoners and guards conform to their roles?
5. How did even Zimbardo, the psychologist conducting the experiment, conform to his role as a
prison superintendent?
6. How did the guards break the solidarity of the prisoners?
7. How did the good guards react to what the bad guards were doing?
8. What are Zimbardo’s conclusions about human behavior, based on this experiment?
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Stanford Prison Experiment
Recent Events Connection
9. In 2003, U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners held at Abu Ghraib, 20 miles west of Baghdad.
The prisoners were stripped, made to wear bags over their heads, and sexually humiliated while
the guards laughed and took photographs. How is this abuse similar to or different from what
took place in the Stanford Prison Experiment?
10. What other historical events could this experiment help us to understand?
Book Group Discussion Questions
11. What are some similarities between the Stanford Prison Experiment and the events in your
book?
12. What are the “roles” that are forced upon people in your book? Elaborate.
13. How do the people in your book respond to their roles?
Prisoners' Coping Styles from http://www.prisonexp.org/
“Prisoners coped with their feelings of frustration and powerlessness in a variety of ways. At
first, some prisoners rebelled or fought with the guards. Four prisoners reacted by breaking down
emotionally as a way to escape the situation. One prisoner developed a psychosomatic rash over his
entire body when he learned that his parole request had been turned down. Others tried to cope by
being good prisoners, doing everything the guards wanted them to do. One of them was even
nicknamed "Sarge," because he was so military-like in executing all commands.
“By the end of the study, the prisoners were disintegrated, both as a group and as individuals.
There was no longer any group unity; just a bunch of isolated individuals hanging on, much like
prisoners of war or hospitalized mental patients. The guards had won total control of the prison,
and they commanded the blind obedience of each prisoner.”
14. Are there any people in your books that show similar styles of coping? Explain.
15. What do you think of this question now? “Does the situation outside of you—the institution—
come to control your behavior, or do the things inside of you—your attitude, your values, your
morality—allow you to rise above a negative environment?” –Philip G. Zimbardo
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