Experiment in Absolute Power

This past weekend, I sat down with some friends to view a little German film with a terrible cover called The Experiment (2001). It was about a group of subjects who signed up to take part in a prison simulation for a psychological study. A third of the subjects assumed the role of prison guards while the rest of them became prisoners. The study was supposed to go on for two weeks, but was terminated after five days. The end of the movie turns into a bit of a bloodbath, but the study and a great deal of it's results were based entirely on a real incident at Standford in 1971.

From Wikipedia:

The Stanford prison experiment was a psychological study of the human response to captivity, in particular, to the real world circumstances of prison life, and the effects of imposed social roles on behavior. It was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University. Volunteers played the roles of guards and prisoners and lived in a mock prison built in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their assigned roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to genuinely dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of guards were judged to have exhibited "genuine" sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be removed from the experiment early. Despite the now highly unsanitary and out of control conditions evident, only one of 50 observers, graduate interviewer Christina Maslach, objected to the experiment. Zimbardo then ended the experiment early.

There is more to read on this subject than I alone could adequately do justice, but a riot broke out within the first day, and it was terminated after only six. The whole experiment is a living example of the adage "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and the terrifying reality of what prison type systems, or for that matter, any position of dominance and supreme authority can do to normal human beings.

Highly suggested reading/ viewing:

Zimbardo's own Prisonexp.org with slideshow
Wikipedia Article
Stanford Report 2001
Stanford News 1997

And if you are 49 minutes interested in the study, I recommend this documentary, Quiet Rage:


Zimbardo was apparently upset enough about the German "Das Experiment" to try and block it's release in the states.

Zimbardo says that, without notifying him in advance, earlier this year a German production company released a film titled Das Experiment. It opens with the statement: "The story of this film is inspired by incidents that occurred during a psychological experiment at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California."

What angers Zimbardo is the way the movie's authors used specific elements of his experiment but turned its conclusion into a fictional nightmare. Without explaining that the film's climax deviated from Zimbardo's experiment, some viewers might be left confused about the psychologist's role. Instead of showing the abrupt end of the experiment -- Zimbardo halted it early after only six days -- the film shows guards attacking and raping a female psychologist and committing other fictional acts of mayhem.

Zimbardo said he has received hundreds of e-mails from Germans asking how he could have allowed such things to happen -- even though he didn't.

"It was very disheartening to have them take this story and twist it in a negative way," said Stanford's legal counsel, Deborah Zumwalt, whose office contacted the film's director and producers. "We were very concerned about it."

I however, would consider the film is worth seeing for the fact that it led me to the real truth behind the matter. Exaggeration serves as a good lure for the more rewarding truth.