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Hallway Hypothesis (Full Episode) | The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth | Nat Geo — Transcript

by National Geographic · 6,241 words · 893 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:09[bees buzzing]
0:12[bees buzzing]
0:24[Jerry Shue] In a very extreme situation,
0:28different people behaved in different ways.
0:32We want to think that everybody's capable
0:34of being bad but us.
0:37"If I'd have been there, I wouldn't have done that."
0:41But that's not what happened.
0:45[Glenn Gee] What do you think would happen
0:47if you took a bunch of college kids,
0:49randomly assign them to be prisoners and guards,
0:52with costumes and everything, and lock them in a basement?
0:56Well, this is what happened 50 years ago.
0:59[montage of disparate voices]
1:04[Shue] I've only been in jail once.
1:06Stanford Prison Experiment. [chuckles]
1:08[Cathy Lee Crosby] At Stanford University,
1:10an experiment was conducted that became a classic
1:12in the annals of social psychology.
1:14[Newscaster] Professor Philip Zimbardo conducted
1:16a legendary experiment by randomly assigning students
1:20to the roles of prison guards and prisoners.
1:23The experiment proved so dangerous
1:25that he had to end it prematurely.
1:31[Philip Zimbardo] We see how quickly the good boys
1:33become brutal guards.
1:35[John Mark] Professor Zimbardo said that evil
1:37isn't just in some of us; it's in all of us.
1:41[Doug Korpi] The control of the narrative has been Phil's.
1:44[Zimbardo] We turn to a man who always
1:45has something up his sleeve.
1:47[Korpi] The experiment has been used
1:48to explain real-life atrocities.
1:50[Zimbardo] The situation he was in corrupted him.
1:53[Shue] It disturbs me that an individual can make something
1:57the status quo for a personal benefit.
2:00[Zimbardo] Yo, it's Phil Zimbardo.
2:01[Thibault Le Texier] He's been telling the story for 50 years.
2:04He's believing his narrative is what really happened.
2:08[Clay Ramsay] There are other things that happened
2:09that we should have been told.
2:12[Le Texier] Most of the participants
2:13haven't been interviewed.
2:15[John Loftus] Zimbardo put out a nice, simple answer,
2:18but it'd be great if somebody interviews
2:20all those people involved and just see how complex this is.
2:25[Guard] One, two.
2:27[Guard] Looking good, fellas.
2:28[Guard] Three, four.
2:31[Guard] So haven't you learned from anything?
2:32[Prisoner] I want out! I want out!
2:34I want out right now!
2:36[Guard] Hold this.
2:37[Prisoner] Right now, I want out! I want out!
2:39[whistle blows, tape rewinds]
2:41[Dave Eshleman] You may think you know
2:42what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't.
2:46[Prisoner singing] ♪ Since I saw God... ♪
2:51[birds chirping]
2:54[Producer] Good? We'll get started.
2:57-Yeah! -Alright.
2:59[Shue] What do you want to talk about?
3:00[Producer] You.
3:01[Chuck Burton] Nobody from the media has ever interviewed me.
3:04Are we hard to find?
3:07[Eshleman] The interest in it never seems to fade.
3:09The only reason that I'm still talking about it
3:11is because people want to hear about it.
3:14[Korpi] About once every decade, somebody asks me about it,
3:18and I realize, "Wow, that was kind of special."
3:21[chuckles] And I tell stories.
3:23And this thing was 50 years ago or whatever, so.
3:29Yeah.
3:31[Producer] Yet we're still talking about it.
3:33[Korpi] Still talking about it.
3:35Oh, no, no. I remember...
3:37Okay, it's all coming back to me now.
3:40[bell ringing]
3:43[dog barking]
3:45[Loftus] In the summer of 1971,
3:47I was trying to find a summer job.
3:49[Eshleman] I saw an ad in the newspaper
3:50that they were doing a prison experiment
3:52and that they were paying $15 a day.
3:55It wasn't that bad for minimum wage-type work.
3:58[Shue] It was $15 a day and three meals
4:01and a roof and a padded bed.
4:03And I thought, "I've just arrived."
4:06[Burton] And that sounded good for me.
4:07I didn't have any money.
4:08[Eshleman] I didn't know anything about prisons
4:10other than what I see in movies.
4:11I had no opinion about them
4:12other than that they must be very evil places.
4:15[Korpi] I didn't give a [bleep].
4:17All I cared about was a summer job.
4:19[Ramsay] They were going to do this for two weeks in August.
4:22[Karl Van Orsdol] It was being run by Stanford,
4:24and Zimbardo had a high reputation in the community.
4:29[Loftus] We called him a disco psychologist.
4:32[Van Orsdol] I applied, and I didn't really know
4:33anything about it.
4:35[Ramsay] I figured it was going to be an imitation prison
4:37of some kind.
4:39[Korpi] I needed to study for the Graduate Record Exam,
4:41and I thought, "Oh, my god. This is a great thing.
4:44It's a prison experiment.
4:45I'll have all this time in the cell.
4:46I'll bring my books. I'll study."
4:48I thought it was the perfect job. [chuckles]
4:55[Van Orsdol] At Stanford University back in 1971...
4:58[Zimbardo] We wanted to see just what happens
5:00when you put good people in a bad situation.
5:04In this case, in jail.
5:07[Van Orsdol] We created a prison.
5:08And in that mock prison, we put a number of young men,
5:11college students from all over the country
5:12who happen to be in the San Francisco area
5:14in the summer.
5:15[Zimbardo] We started with 100 people that called us
5:18answering an ad, and we interviewed them,
5:20gave them personality tests.
5:22[Van Orsdol] I remember it being presented as an experiment
5:25on how individuals deal with captivity
5:29in a specific sort of prison-like situation.
5:32[Burton] There's gonna be no threat of violence,
5:34no threat of sexual assault.
5:36[Eshleman] They gave me a psychological profile test.
5:39One of these lengthy questionnaires.
5:40They tried to see if you got some kind of pathology
5:43or something like that.
5:45[Loftus] They ask you your background
5:47and had you ever been in jail,
5:49'cause they didn't want anybody that had actually been in jail.
5:52[Korpi] And I remember signing a contract.
5:54You couldn't leave unless you had a good cause,
5:58like something physical.
6:00[Burton] Out of the 125 people,
6:01the smaller group of people that they felt
6:03were the most psychologically stable,
6:04which I thought was hilarious,
6:07'cause I didn't feel very psychologically stable.
6:10[Zimbardo] We picked two dozen,
6:12and then we flipped a coin and said,
6:14"These guys are guards and these guys are prisoners."
6:16[Phil Donahue] What were your instructions to the guards?
6:17[Zimbardo] We simply said maintain law and order,
6:19don't let the prisoners escape,
6:21and the control of the prison is up to you.
6:24[Burton] This was the '70s.
6:25We were all rebellious, young, drug-using,
6:29anti-war, long-haired kids.
6:31Everybody involved in this could imagine being a prisoner.
6:34Not one person could put themselves
6:35into the mindset of being a guard.
6:39[Shue] I was glad to hear that I would be a prisoner.
6:42I figured that would be a passive role.
6:45[Korpi] I imagined that I would have time to study,
6:47so I imagined myself being a prisoner.
6:49[Van Orsdol] I didn't sort of volunteer to be a guard.
6:52[Eshleman] I said I would have preferred to be a prisoner,
6:54but I was chosen instead to be a guard.
6:56I was a little disappointed, but it was still $15 a day,
7:00so, hey, you know, let's do it.
7:05[Loftus] They sent us guards out to a surplus store
7:08and we were supposed to pick out uniforms.
7:11[Van Orsdol] I had the khaki uniform that we were issued.
7:15[Eshleman] We were issued a night stick,
7:19mirrored sunglasses, a uniform.
7:20[Burton] That was so contrary to the identity
7:22that probably any of us young men had ever thought of
7:26as like authoritarian, rough, mean.
7:30Having reflecting sunglasses and a uniform, carrying a club
7:33was just like, you know, "What is that?"
7:37Hehh, wah!
7:38I mean.
7:40[Zimbardo] We only wanted to have normal, healthy,
7:41average American youth.
7:42[Donahue] Yeah.
7:43[Zimbardo] When we began, there was no difference
7:45between the people who were gonna play guards
7:46and the people who were gonna play prisoners.
7:48♪ ♪
7:52[Korpi] On Sunday morning, I'm waiting in my home,
7:56and this cop car comes up.
7:58And a guy is in the street with a huge camera.
8:01And a cop comes to my door and he says, "We're arresting you."
8:07So I can't imagine what the neighbors were thinking.
8:12[Shue] They had the police handcuff me
8:14and take me downstairs.
8:19[Korpi] There's a camera filming Doug
8:20who's got his hand on the top of the car.
8:22And they're frisking him.
8:23They're putting him in handcuffs.
8:25[camera shutter clicks]
8:27They put me in the back of the cop car.
8:30They drove off, and this guy is filming the whole thing.
8:32And I really wanted to tell the neighbors,
8:34"This is just an experiment!"
8:36[siren]
8:40[Shue] The next thing I remember is the cops fingerprinting us
8:44at the police station.
8:49[Van Orsdol] I remember being a little shocked
8:52at the level of authenticity.
8:55It was a real event in a way in these prisoners' lives.
9:00[camera shutter clicking]
9:01[Zimbardo] We tried to create an environment
9:03which was a functional simulation
9:05of what happens in prison.
9:14[Shue] As you can see in the footage,
9:16when the police dropped us off,
9:19we were blindfolded at that point.
9:21We didn't know where we were,
9:23and we just wound up in this hallway.
9:29I just remember being told to strip.
9:35[Guard] Socks off, too.
9:37[Shue] And stand with my hands against the wall,
9:41and they sprayed me.
9:43[Eshleman] We would make them wear
9:44these very simple, scratchy smocks.
9:49[Loftus] A smock with their number on it.
9:53[Eshleman] It kind of went down to mid-thigh,
9:54and they didn't let them wear their underwear.
9:57[Loftus] They would be wearing a nylon stock over their head
9:59to simulate having shaved heads.
10:06[Korpi] They put like chains, just on one foot, and lock.
10:10[Shue] It was part of their plan to dehumanize us.
10:15[Van Orsdol] They became an object in a system
10:17as opposed to an individual.
10:28[Korpi] There were three prison cells,
10:30and each of the cells was the size of a small bedroom
10:33with a couple of mattresses.
10:36And they had windows on the doors with bars on them
10:39so that you can come by and take a look in there
10:41and see what was going on.
10:43[Loftus] There was a camera at the end of the hall.
10:45There was a false wall and a hole in it.
10:47And if there's anybody in the hall, it was recording behavior.
10:51[Gee] From your cell, one couldn't see the entire hallway.
10:55All I can do is hear the noise.
10:57[Mark] At first, everything about it was uncomfortable,
11:00except probably the sunglasses
11:02'cause I did like to wear sunglasses.
11:04Especially if your eyes are red from getting high,
11:07that was helpful.
11:09[Burton] First day, there was that feeling of awkwardness
11:12to kind of get us into our roles.
11:14But that feeling disappeared very quickly
11:16with all the stuff that was happening.
11:18[Eshleman] I took a leadership role, deliberately.
11:20Somebody must have been spending a lot of money
11:22to have this experiment put on,
11:23and they were trying to show the bad effects of prison,
11:27but nothing was happening.
11:28I said, "Okay, here's what we're gonna do."
11:30I was making the plans.
11:32[whistle blows] Morning, girls!
11:34[Guard] Open the cell.
11:35[indistinct shouting]
11:39[Eshleman] We would get them out of their cells,
11:41line them up in the hallway.
11:47[Eshleman] And I would take them through drills.
11:48[Prisoners] One, two, three, four, five, six,
11:50seven, eight, nine.
11:54[Eshleman] I shouted in their faces quite a bit.
12:00[Korpi] One of the guards, we called him John Wayne.
12:04[Eshleman] They gave me the nickname John Wayne.
12:06And it's kind of curious, because John Wayne never played
12:08evil characters in his films, he always played the hero.
12:11Well, we were all against the Vietnam War.
12:14John Wayne came out in full support of the Vietnam War.
12:18So if you're an evil dude, you're an enemy...
12:22[indistinct shouting]
12:23Then what the hell are you talking about?
12:25...you're John Wayne.
12:27[Shue] John Wayne was a very dramatic presence.
12:31[Eshleman] This time, louder.
12:33[Korpi] He kept doing irritating things.
12:35[Eshleman] You tell me who's boss. [whistle blows]
12:37At first, I tried to make it kind of entertaining,
12:40and I would make up the drills as I pretty much went along.
12:47[Eshleman] It was singing stupid songs
12:49or it was telling the guy next to you that you loved him.
12:52Anything that we thought would be kind of humiliating for guys.
12:59[Eshleman] We had them refer to us as,
13:00"Yes, Mr. Correctional Officer."
13:10[Eshleman] We referred to them by their numbers.
13:18[Eshleman] So all things designed
13:20to sort of dehumanize the prisoners.
13:22[Shue] We started out having fun, laughing and joking.
13:27And they told us to chant something,
13:28we would bastardize it somehow.
13:36[laughter]
13:37[Korpi] And you know that the "guards" couldn't hurt you.
13:40I mean, it's an experiment, for God's sakes.
13:43We're all White, middle-class students.
13:44What are they gonna do to us?
13:45[Shue] They started to selectively punish smartasses.
13:50[Van Orsdol] Just harassment, basically,
13:52and wanting the prisoners to show respect to the guards.
13:57[Zimbardo] We're really dealing now
13:58with power relationships
14:00between people who have some power to control others
14:04and people who allow themselves to be controlled.
14:06It's a gradual process.
14:07You get socialized into the role.
14:09[Eshleman] It's almost surreal when you think about it.
14:11Everybody was taking this as if it were a real prison.
14:15I think that I took control of the group of guards
14:18and they followed my lead.
14:20♪ ♪
14:24♪ ♪
14:30Woo!
14:33I had just finished my freshman year
14:35where I had gone through hazing at a fraternity.
14:39And they would take us through different humiliations.
14:45They poured molasses all over my head.
14:48They made me rub this very burning ointment on my genitals.
14:53I said, "This has got nothing to do with anything.
14:55It's just you guys being sadistic bastards."
15:02And some of that you hold inside,
15:04and if you're in a position
15:07where you can return this cruelty to somebody else,
15:11maybe you know how to do it.
15:18[Burton] Dave had cultivated this persona
15:22of this despised, hated, feared figure of authority
15:25that nobody wanted to mess with.
15:33[Burton] I tried to be a sidekick to him
15:36in a lot of the stuff we were doing.
15:47[Burton] Everybody was in their role.
15:48We were already settling into
15:50this is what it's like in a prison.
15:56[Burton] One, two, three, four.
15:58We just kind of contrived things
15:59to make the prisoners feel bad about themselves.
16:02In this very short period of time,
16:04we were endeavoring to break them down.
16:12♪ ♪
16:16♪ ♪
16:22[Burton] My name is Chuck Burton.
16:25I live in Mexico for more than half of every year
16:28where my name is either Carlos or Carlitos.
16:33In 1981, I became a tax preparer,
16:35and I basically worked for 36 years doing tax returns.
16:40I decided I didn't want to spend my life indoors anymore.
16:45So I spend my life outdoors as much as possible.
16:49This all fits in the context
16:50of a pretty deep Buddhist meditation practice.
16:57My younger days were very difficult.
17:02I was super small.
17:05I was the smallest kid in high school.
17:07My parents made the mistake when I was in third grade
17:09of skipping me because I was intellectually so far ahead.
17:13This was a very difficult thing in my adolescent years
17:16and into my early 20s.
17:18In the Stanford Prison Experiment,
17:20it was one of the first times
17:22I can remember in my life feeling powerful.
17:25♪ ♪
17:32[Korpi] So we're in these cells, and I learned they weren't
17:36gonna let anybody come in to give me my books.
17:38And I thought, well, wait a minute.
17:40In prison, they give you books.
17:42How can you deny this in an experiment?
17:46And there's nothing to do.
17:48[Guard] 3401.
17:52[Korpi] And the guards kept doing irritating things
17:54like not giving us utensils to eat and [bleep].
17:56They were making life yucky.
18:02[Korpi] But the job was to be a prisoner.
18:03And what do prisoners do? They get to act naughty.
18:07And we knew we could do anything.
18:08So it was like this incredible sense of freedom.
18:13So I thought, "Well, we'll make this a rebellion."
18:15And it turns out the doors opened into the cells.
18:19So I thought, "These guards keep waking us up.
18:20Well, screw that.
18:21Let's just put the beds in front of the door
18:23so they can't come in.
18:25Get your bed in front of the door!
18:27One vertical, one horizontal.
18:28Don't let them in.
18:30And that pissed off the guards.
18:32[Guard] Get reinforcements!
18:33[Prisoner] Yeah, you're gonna have to push harder than that.
18:35[Eshleman] That was a reason for us to get tougher with them.
18:37We could not have them challenge our authority as guards.
18:40[Zimbardo] The prisoners rebelled.
18:42That was the turning point,
18:43because then the guards had a reason to crush the rebellion
18:46and think of these other students as dangerous prisoners.
18:50[Guard] Get, get them out.
18:51[Prisoner] Oh, man.
18:52[Prisoner] Come on! Come on!
18:53[Eshleman] We took their beds away.
18:55[Burton] Back up.
18:58[Eshleman] To remove that element of comfort.
19:00[Prisoner] Whoa! Whoa!
19:02[Prisoner] Leave me alone. Come on, man.
19:04[Korpi] They beat us when they took the beds out.
19:06So they won that round.
19:08[Burton] How about that?
19:09[Korpi] So they're not winning the next round.
19:12[Burton] The prisoners had gotten together and decided
19:14that they were gonna fight their way out of this
19:16and mounted a rebellion.
19:17Get back from the door.
19:19At that point, it escalated.
19:21[Korpi] I ripped off my number and I threw it in the hall.
19:23And I said, "Let's all rip off our numbers
19:25and let's all throw them in the halls."
19:27Tear off your numbers!
19:28[Prisoner] Yes!
19:29[Korpi] And when they would call me 8612, I wouldn't respond.
19:32I said, "My name is Doug!"
19:34[Prisoner] You can't take our smocks, man.
19:35[Guard] Yes, we are.
19:36[Prisoner] You're not taking our...
19:37[Guard] Smocks off.
19:38[Korpi] They took our smocks.
19:39And underneath our smocks, we had nothing.
19:40Me and this other guy, they chained us together.
19:43One arm to one arm, and one leg to one leg.
19:46Naked.
19:47So now they're thinking, they got me, they've won.
19:50I wasn't gonna let them win.
19:56Come on, dogs.
19:58I've always been an extrovert.
20:00[laughing]
20:02A dog's gotta take a dump.
20:04I've always had a lot of energy. I'm an energized guy.
20:08Growing up, I suffered a cultural lag
20:11when I was in high school.
20:13And then I went to UC Berkeley,
20:14and it was during the really raucous years.
20:16♪ ♪
20:23It was rebellionville.
20:24The antiauthoritarian spirit was part of the zeitgeist.
20:27We were all feeling this way.
20:30That's where I became political.
20:32I used to have wonderful hair.
20:34[laughs]
20:35You got to yell and scream and rail against the man.
20:40It taught me that I had a perspective,
20:42that I was creative,
20:45which means breaking out of the box in some way.
20:48I wasn't the usual guy that was just gonna go along with things.
20:53I was gonna have my way.
20:54♪ ♪
21:01In the prison cell, there were plugs.
21:04And in the plugs, there's a screw.
21:07If you take that screw out, you can use that as a screwdriver.
21:10The mechanism that locked the door was on the inside.
21:15So we use that screw,
21:16every time the guard would go out of the way.
21:20We'd go and unloosen some of the screws.
21:22He'd come back, we'd... [whistles]
21:26And he'll be waiting for the shift change.
21:28We opened up the door.
21:30We looked to see if they were gone.
21:33And then hobble down the other way,
21:37naked, and around the corner,
21:39thinking that we were gonna escape.
21:42So they figured out we escaped and they came and got us.
21:45[Guards] Hey, come here!
21:47Come on. Come on.
21:49[Korpi] When they threw us back in the cell naked,
21:53and I thought, oh, my god. This is not fun anymore.
21:56This can't get any better. It can only get worse.
22:08[Loftus] Hands off the door.
22:09This one guy was rattling the bars and calling me something,
22:13and I grab this fire extinguisher
22:16to get him away from the bars, and I sprayed him with it.
22:21I thought it was funny.
22:24[Korpi] When the repercussions were being too severe,
22:27all I remember thinking, "This is a bad, bad job.
22:32I gotta get out of this job."
22:40[Korpi] [bleep] This is for real.
22:42These people don't want to let me out.
22:45What am I gonna do? And I had to be creative.
22:48So I said I had a tummy ache,
22:49because I thought that would get me out.
22:52So they pulled me in the back, Zimbardo was there,
22:55that's where I really remember Zimbardo for the first time.
22:59Phil is big, 6-foot-1, 220 pounds.
23:04I was 110 and 5'8".
23:07He was a professor at Stanford.
23:10Zimbardo's a fancy guy.
23:12I was intimidated.
23:13He said, "Doug, you can't leave because history being made,
23:17and you're the leader of the rebellion, for God's sakes.
23:20We need your input in this important event."
23:24When I came out of that room, I had the definite impression
23:28that I couldn't leave the experiment.
23:47[Van Orsdol] Locking them in the hole was the most disturbing.
23:51It was a small closet
23:52which was very dark and dank and very small.
23:55And it would be quite a frightening experience.
24:07[Korpi] They threw me in the hole.
24:09[door slams]
24:14I was in this closet on my side lying down.
24:19And it's dark.
24:21And I remember being really like,
24:22"Oh, [bleep], I can't get out of this experiment."
24:27Somebody had control over my life.
24:30I'm in this emotional state.
24:42[Shue] I could hear him screaming about,
24:44"I'm burning up inside."
24:49[Korpi] I'm [bleep] up.
24:50And then I got desperate.
24:53I want out! I want out!
24:55I want out right now!
24:57Right now, I want out!
24:58I want out!
25:00[hyperventilating]
25:01[Mark] Being isolated in that little dark space, he cracked.
25:06[screaming]
25:09[Zimbardo] Prisoner 8612 was suffering
25:11from acute emotional disturbance.
25:13We had already come to think so much like prison authorities
25:16that we thought he was trying to con us.
25:19[Eshleman] The guy's a wimp. He can't take it.
25:21He must be just a very weak-willed individual.
25:24Turn around. Push-ups!
25:25There's nothing we're doing here that's even close
25:27to what they do if you try to join a fraternity.
25:30[Zimbardo] Took quite a while before we could be convinced
25:32that he was really suffering, and then we released him.
25:35[bird chirping]
25:43[machine humming]
25:49[Korpi] Did you see what Debbie gave us yet?
25:52Our neighbor gave us dessert.
25:55My girlfriend, Theresa, came down to Stanford to pick me up.
25:58We got in the parking lot and I could relax,
26:01and I said, "Oh, phew. I got out of there.
26:03Thanks for coming and saving me, honey."
26:05[laughs]
26:07You want me to make you a cup of coffee, sweetie?
26:09[Theresa Hanna] Yeah.
26:10[machine humming]
26:12It was in the evening and they called and said,
26:15"He's really upset and he says he wants to go home,
26:18so I think maybe you should come and get him."
26:21I got there and the guy, the guy says, "Well, you know,
26:24he seems to be having some kind of mental breakdown."
26:27I majored in psychology, too, so I was aware of all these,
26:31you know, human subject experiments
26:33and that there were moral problems
26:36with subjecting human beings to artificially abusive situations.
26:42You seemed really upset that they would keep you
26:45against your will, and that made you very, very angry.
26:50♪ ♪
26:55[Korpi] I blame Zimbardo for doing that experiment on me.
27:02It was a horrible job, and Zimbardo was the perpetrator.
27:08I was a victim.
27:11Zimbardo would say,
27:12"It's getting the job done for the greater good."
27:15The problem is he doesn't care who he hurts along the way.
27:19♪ ♪
27:24♪ ♪
27:29[Ramsay] The Stanford Prison Experiment began,
27:32and I had not been called.
27:35So then I was disappointed, like, "Oh, shoot."
27:37You know, it's like whatever it was gonna be, $220, you know?
27:41Ah, too bad.
27:43And I forgot about it completely.
27:48But then the phone rang and they said,
27:53"We would like you to come in." And I went, "Great!"
28:01[Ramsay] So I arrived at Stanford.
28:04They told me what building, what door, so I went in.
28:15And I kind of went, "Where is everybody?"
28:20[Guard] Got fresh meat here.
28:21[Guard] Think so.
28:25We got his stuff here.
28:26[Ramsay] They stripped me, deloused me, put the gown on me,
28:33and the anklet chain, and then took me down to my cell.
28:42[Guard] ...you guys will be out here all night
28:44if you don't get it right.
28:45[Ramsay] If you were in a cell,
28:46you couldn't see anything, really.
28:48I could hear a little bit of what was going on
28:50on the other side of the wall.
28:54[Guard] Well, why don't you apply it to yourself?
28:56Inmate 2093, think about just what a...
28:58[Ramsay] There were things going on right there
29:00that you didn't understand,
29:01and especially coming in in the middle,
29:03that was true for me.
29:06Your real communication was limited
29:08mostly to the people who were in the cell with you.
29:13[Shue] Clay was a standby prisoner,
29:16and we wound up in the same cell,
29:18and we had good talks about lots of things.
29:22So there was a bond there.
29:35[Burton] The prisoners were very subdued.
29:39They had already been subjected to trauma.
29:42And they were not in much of a mood to challenge us in any way.
29:47[Eshleman] The prisoners simply were exhausted.
29:51♪ ♪
29:56And they were in a much different environment
29:58than we were.
29:59We did an eight-hour shift.
30:01We can go home,
30:03reconnect with the real outside world,
30:07and then resume the next day.
30:10They're there 24 hours a day,
30:11had no idea what time it was, whether it was night or day,
30:13how long they'd been there,
30:15so you can see why they would despair.
30:18[Zimbardo] What we wanted to do is create
30:20a central psychology of imprisonment,
30:22and that's all about power.
30:23Every prison is about power.
30:26The prisoners have to be ultimately dehumanized,
30:29end up thinking of them as animals.
30:30And the guards have to be impersonal, distant.
30:33[whistle blows]
30:34[Guard] Everybody out in the hallway. Come on.
30:35[Guard] Come on. Let's go.
30:37[Eshleman] We amplified it day after day.
30:39It's like, "What can we do today
30:40to top what we did the day before?"
30:42[Ramsay] The foundation of the harassment
30:44was breaking up our sleep.
30:46[Guard] Good morning.
30:47[Ramsay] To be woken at 2:00 in the morning.
30:49[whistle blows]
30:50[Eshleman] Everybody out in the hallway.
30:51Come on. Come on. Up.
30:53[Ramsay] And again at 4:00 in the morning.
30:55[whistle blows]
31:01[Ramsay] That is a really effective way
31:02of breaking people down.
31:04[Prisoners] 4075, 1043.
31:05[Ramsay] And so everybody's up and you're on your feet,
31:08you're not really awake,
31:09and then they try to think of things to do.
31:11[Prisoner] 819, 54, 86.
31:14[Eshleman] Wait.
31:19[Guard] That's terrible.
31:21[Ramsay] John Wayne in particular,
31:22he would pick one and say he'd done something wrong.
31:24Pull him out, make him do push-ups.
31:33[Prisoner] One, two...
31:34[Ramsay] He would insult us in a way that he hoped
31:36would get a rise out of somebody,
31:38so that then that person could be punished.
31:42[Prisoner] No, sir.
31:44[Ramsay] If somebody seemed to not like that person
31:47getting punished, then pull them out of the line
31:49and make them do the punishing.
31:54[Ramsay] And just kind of build it up from there.
32:02[Shue] Clay wasn't comfortable with what's going on.
32:05It was a little too rough and angry.
32:16[Eshleman] He didn't understand the drill, so to speak,
32:18you know, he's coming in fresh from the outside,
32:21and he didn't want to cooperate.
32:22And so we picked on him
32:25and made sure that we would break his will.
32:28[Prisoners] Life is but a dream!
32:29[Eshleman] Good. Everybody up against the wall.
32:31[Ramsay] I could understand people feeling like
32:35it's only two weeks,
32:37but I was absolutely not an "it's only two weeks" person
32:39about anything.
32:42[Prisoner singing] ♪ Row, row, row your boat ♪
32:44[Ramsay] I didn't think any moment of my precious life
32:47was worth wasting.
32:49Once I had arrived at the conclusion something was stupid,
32:52then I was out of there.
32:54♪ Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream ♪
32:57♪ Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily ♪
32:59♪ Life is but a dream ♪
33:01[Eshleman] Not bad.
33:05[Ramsay] During high school,
33:07I wanted to be a great avant-garde novelist.
33:09I thought that college was some kind of ideological trap.
33:14And instead, I was gonna join the Merchant Marine
33:17and I was gonna work six months of the year,
33:18and then, I would take the money and I would go to Mexico,
33:21and I would write my masterpiece.
33:23If someone had said, "Aren't you gonna miss your friends?"
33:26I would have gone, "This is important."
33:30I was the sailors' janitor.
33:34What I did was get up at 5:00 in the morning
33:36and go look at the sunrise.
33:38I did meditate.
33:41I would go up on the bow,
33:42which is a fantastic place to meditate.
33:47With the experiment, I do recall thinking
33:50that I'll just have a lot of time to meditate,
33:55that it will be reflective,
33:56because people will leave you alone. [chuckles]
34:00[Prisoner] One.
34:02[Eshleman] I want to hear 'em. Yeah, louder!
34:03[Shue] Clay had been in the Merchant Marines.
34:06He had been there and done that,
34:08and he wasn't gonna do this for fun.
34:14[Ramsay] And I thought to myself,
34:15"Is this what I would call an experiment?" [chuckles]
34:20[Eshleman] Three over there.
34:21[Ramsay] It is just a mess.
34:24I began to think about how could I get myself released.
34:28And at that point, I had the idea of a hunger strike.
34:31[whistle blows]
34:33[Eshleman] Hot dog day!
34:35♪ ♪
34:38♪ ♪
34:43Eat that hot dog, Prisoner 416.
34:47[Ramsay] It's not easy in a real prison
34:48to break somebody's hunger strike.
34:50It was a surprise for them,
34:53because they hadn't figured out what do you do?
34:55[Burton] Our meal that evening was sausages,
34:58and he wouldn't eat them.
35:05[Burton] Both Dave and I were just enraged
35:06that this guy was challenging our authority.
35:10[Ramsay] They did try to jam food down my throat.
35:14[Burton] He was just, "No way."
35:17[Ramsay] It was clear that they didn't know how far to go.
35:21[Burton] And so we put him in the hole.
35:24[Guard] Go ahead.
35:28[Ramsay] I am put in the big empty box.
35:32I don't think I could stretch out 100%, but close,
35:35but I had privacy.
35:38Remember, I was also sleep deprived.
35:41So I was thinking about my novel,
35:44which was about the cultural revolution
35:47of California by acid.
35:53It was a kind of fever dream.
35:55[Eshleman] Thank you, 416.
35:57[Burton] Over there. Alright. That's fine.
35:58[Eshleman] In order to turn the prisoners against the prisoner
36:02who went on a hunger strike,
36:04we let them know that if he was not going to eat his dinner,
36:09we would take their blanket away.
36:27[Shue] The other three remaining prisoners all said,
36:30"No, I won't give up my sheet."
36:32And I liked Clay and we had shared a cell, and I said,
36:35"Yeah, I'll give him my sheet."
36:36I thought I was above the game at that point.
36:52[Shue] Later that night, he's still in the closet.
36:56The guard ordered the prisoners to pound on the door.
37:03[Shue] Basically, I just didn't want to make waves,
37:05and I thought, "Well, he knows I'm his friend,
37:07and I'll do this just to keep things smooth."
37:16[Shue] I could have said, "No, I will not pound on that door."
37:19But it was easier to just go through the motions
37:21and say something calming.
37:24Um...
37:27So...
37:32So I respect what he represented.
37:43[Eshleman] Because of our solidarity,
37:45we were successful in our aim
37:47to break down the solidarity of the prisoners
37:49to where the prisoners were turning against each other.
37:52[Burton] I was so angry at being challenged on this basis
37:56when we had never been challenged.
37:58And at one point, I started walking
38:01by this little tiny closet that he was in...
38:05[voice breaking] ...and hitting it with my club.
38:08[sniffles]
38:09I've never come to grips with how or why that happened.
38:15[Zimbardo] But the reality of that prison was so deep,
38:18once you're in that setting,
38:20your identity as a good guard or a bad guard
38:23becomes really important to you.
38:25The level of aggression the guards escalated,
38:28they would think of more and more
38:29sadistically creative things to do to show that they had power.
38:34The worst abuses happened at night.
38:36Because at night, I went to sleep.
38:38So, when the cat's away, it's time to play.
38:42[Shue] Tried to put us
38:43in sexually embarrassing situations.
38:46[Zimbardo] Guards would say, "Okay.
38:47You guys are female camels, bend over.
38:49You guys are male camels, hump them."
38:51[Prisoner] Oh, no.
38:52[Shue] A guy would be in a push-up position,
38:54and somebody else was supposed to mount them like a dog.
38:59[Zimbardo] They would simulate sodomy,
39:01their butts were exposed.
39:02You had five kids having emotional breakdowns.
39:05It was out of control.
39:12[Eshleman] You give somebody absolute power,
39:14they're gonna want to use it.
39:16And if you make people objects by assigning them a number,
39:19instead of referring to them by name,
39:22I don't see you as equal to me anymore,
39:24and therefore anything I do to you is justified.
39:30[Zimbardo] The fifth day.
39:31Would you like to see the rest of the facility?
39:32One of the people that came down was a young woman,
39:34Christina Maslach, and she and I had just started dating.
39:38[Christina Maslach] I just came down to the prison basement
39:42just to see what was happening.
39:44[Eshleman] Down, up, down, up.
39:46[Maslach] And I just got sick to my stomach.
39:48I thought that, "Oh, my god, this is awful."
39:50Philip said, "Oh, you see that?" You know, kind of thing.
39:53And I just got upset.
39:54[Zimbardo] And she starts tearing up and runs out.
39:57And I run after her and I said, "What's wrong?"
39:58And she said, "What you're doing to those boys is terrible."
40:02[Maslach] These are young people and they're being treated badly,
40:06and there's no reason for this.
40:08And why are you doing it?
40:09You have to stop it now.
40:11[Zimbardo] We are creating the prison
40:13in which people are suffering,
40:15where the guards are behaving sadistically, brutally.
40:19At times, even I forgot I was an experimenter
40:22and acted like a prison warden.
40:26And at that point, we said, "Enough, we have to end this."
40:34[Eshleman] I came in for my shift
40:36and was told, "That's it. They called it off."
40:38And I said, "Oh, so early?"
40:41You know, I thought it was just getting started.
40:44[Shue] John Wayne had played his role
40:46about as hard as he could play his role given the constraints.
40:50I mean, the only way he could play his role any harder
40:52would be to physically abuse Clay.
40:56[Ramsay] The only good news was that they were gonna let me out.
41:00[Van Orsdol] I remember being quite disappointed
41:02that it ended early and surprised why.
41:05[Burton] The people that had created
41:07this Frankenstein monster were controlled by the monster,
41:11up to the very top.
41:14[Eshleman] Shortly after they called it off, it hit the news.
41:17[Ted Koppel] Philip Zimbardo,
41:18professor of psychology at Stanford University.
41:21[Eshleman] It was sensational.
41:25[Crosby] What did your experiment prove?
41:27[Zimbardo] Evil behavior can be elicited in the best of us.
41:30We underestimate how strong the situation is.
41:33These good boys were behaving sadistically
41:36if they were guards.
41:37[Eshleman] It was a dramatic story.
41:39He got tons of news coverage.
41:40[Burton] Lots of people wanting to talk to him,
41:41lots of people want to hear his opinion.
41:43[Shue] Zimbardo became an authority on prison.
41:46[Man] He spent his career speaking as an expert witness
41:49in court cases defending people in prisons
41:52who'd done awful things.
41:53[Analyst] You testified in the Abu Ghraib scandal.
41:56[Zimbardo] I was part of the defense team.
41:57[Ramsay] And then it became an academic object
41:59because it found its way into textbooks in social psychology.
42:03Students are introduced to it year after year after year.
42:06[Mark] He wrote a book.
42:07[Newscaster] Entitled The Lucifer Effect,
42:08Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.
42:12[Eshleman] He's got a narrative to tell,
42:14but he can be a little more forthcoming
42:16about what really went on.
42:21[Le Texier] I never thought about debunking
42:23the Stanford Prison Experiment.
42:26But then I went through the archive.
42:32There are large discrepancies
42:34between the official narrative and the archive.
42:37What Zimbardo says happened
42:39is not what the archives says happened.
42:41He's caught into his own trap.
42:48[Le Texier] It can prove that you can do very bad science
42:51and go away with it.
42:54The official narrative was a lie.
42:59After going through the archive,
43:00I started to realize that what Zimbardo says happened,
43:04it was not what really happened.
43:07[Mark] Zimbardo was disingenuous.
43:08[Man] I'm the guy that you never heard about
43:10that you should be hearing about.
43:11[Eshleman] We were all on the same page
43:13to prove that prisons are an evil environment.
43:15This is set up for the guards to abuse.
43:18[Hanna] I can't have them kill each other.
43:19[Le Texier] The experimenter is putting their hands
43:21into the material.
43:22[Eshleman] If you listen to the tape,
43:23it does sound a little suspect.
43:25[Le Texier] The participants couldn't get out.
43:27[Korpi] He's re-traumatizing.
43:29[Man] Why did you do that to those kids?
43:31[Eshleman] Come on.
43:31[Man] Have you ever...
43:33[beep]
43:34♪ ♪
43:38♪ ♪
43:44♪ ♪
43:50♪ ♪
43:57♪ ♪

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