[Man] I was the first one to be picked up, so they put me in a cell
they locked me in there
in this degrading little outfit.
[Guard] Hey! I don't want anybody laughing!
My way is the rule!
[unintelligible yelling]
[Man] I've gotta go to a doctor, anything.
[Man] Jesus Christ, I'm burning up inside dontcha know!
I want out!
I want out now!
[Man] I've never screamed so loud in my life,
never been so upset in my life.
It was an experience of being out of control.
[Man] I just fucking can't take it.
[Narrator] Stanford University, Northern California.
One of America's most prestigious academic institutions
and in 1971, the scene of one of the most notorious experiments
in the history of psychology.
[Zimbardo] I was interested in what happens if you put good people in an evil place.
Does the situation outside of you, the institution, come to control your behavior
or does the things inside of you,
your attitudes, your values, your morality
allow you to rise above a negative environment?
[Narrator] The negative environment Zimbardo chose to test his ideas,
was a prison.
He would convert the basement of the university psychology department
into a subterranean jail.
[Zimbardo] We put prison doors on each of three office cells.
In the cells, it was nothing but three beds
and there was actually very little room for anything else because they're very small.
And here we had solitary confinement, which we call "the hole."
And in the hole was where the prisoners would be put for punishment.
It was a very very small area.
When you close the door, it was totally dark.
All the guards wore military uniforms
and we had them wear these silver reflecting sunglasses.
And what it does is, you can't see someone's eyes
and that loses some the humanness, the humanity.
In general, we wanted to create a sense of power.
That the guards as a category, are people who have power over others.
And in this case, power over the prisoners.
[Narrator] A decade earlier,
psychologist Stanley Milgrim had also looked at how we respond to authority.
In order to understand how people were induced to obey unjust regimes
and participate in atrocities such as the holocaust, he set up an experiment.
Volunteers were told they were taking part in scientific research to improve memory.
[Experimenter] Would you open those and tell me which of you is which please?
[First man] Teacher. [Second man] Learner.
[Narrator] Separated by a screen,
the teacher would ask the learner questions in a word game
and administer an electric shock when the answer was incorrect.
He was told to increase the voltage with each wrong answer.
[Teacher] Cloud, horse, rock, or house? Answer?
[buzz] [Teacher] Wrong.
150 volts. Answer: horse.
[Learner] Ow! That's all! Get me out of here! Get me out of here, please!
[Experimenter] Continue please. [teacher gesturing, unsure]
[Learner] I refuse to go on! Let me out!
[Experimenter] The experiment requires you continue, teacher. Please continue.
[Narrator] Participants didn't know that the learner was really an actor
and the so-called shocks, were harmless.
[Teacher] Now you'll get a shock. 180 volts.
[Learner] Ow! I can't stand the pain, let me out of here!
[Teacher] He can't stand the pain, I'm not going to kill that man.
Who's going to take the responsibility if anything happens to that gentleman?
[Experimenter] I'm responsible for anything that happens here. Continue please.
[Teacher] Alright, next one. Slow, walk, dance, truck, music.
[Narrator] 2/3 of volunteers were prepared to administer potentially fatal electric shock
when encouraged to do so by what they perceived to be a legitimate authority figure.
In this case, a man in a white coat.
[Teacher] 375 volts. I think something's happened to that fellow in there.
I got no answer, he was hollering at all this voltage.
Can you check him to see if he's alright please?
[Narrator] Milgrim's findings horrified America.
They showed that decent American citizens were as capable of committing acts
against their conscious
as the Germans had been under the Nazis.
Like Milgrim, Zimbardo was interested
in the power of social situations to overwhelm individuals.
His experiment would test people's responses to an oppressive regime.
Would they accept it? Or act against it?
Zimbardo's experiment was conducted against a backdrop of Civil Rights activism
and protests against the Vietnam war.
[Zimbardo] It was a sense of student power, student dominance
and student rebellion against authority in general.
[Narrator] It was from the student body Zimbardo selected his participants.
After passing tests, to screen out anyone with a psychological abnormality,
they were paid $15 a day.
Each was randomly assigned the role of guard or prisoner.
[Man] It was a prison to me, it still is a prison to me.
I don't look at it as an experiment or a simulation.
It was just a prison that was run by psychologists instead of run by the state.
[Ramsay] I was 20, and that September I was going to college.
And it would be nice to have a summer job, but there sure wasn't a lot of time left.
And I looked in the want ads and I found this thing which was just going to fit.
It was just two weeks.
[Man] You put a uniform on, and are given a job
to keep these people in line.
You really become that person once you put on that khaki uniform,
you put on the glasses, you take the nightstick.
[Eshleman] I was on summer break from my first year of college
and I was looking for a job.
Had to chose between that or making pizzas.
And that sounded like a lot more fun.
[Narrator] As well as running the experiment,
Zimbardo took on the role of prison superintendent.
He began by briefing the guards.
[Zimbardo] I said, "We have to maintain law and order.
"If prisoners escape, the study is over. And you can't use physical violence."
[Zimbardo] You can create a sense of fear in them.
You can create a notion that their life is totally in control by us.
There will be constant surveillance,
we have total power of the situation and they have none.
[Narrator] Prisoners were brought to the basement prison,
blindfolded to confuse them about their whereabouts.
They were stripped and deloused.
[Zimbardo] of course the guards started making fun of their genitals
and humiliating them and really it starts what's known as a degradation process.
Which not only prisons, but lots of military type outfits use that process.
[Prisoner ] When I first got there, even though I had to strip,
and they would call me names, I still didn't feel at all like it was a prison.
I just looked at it like a job.
[Eshleman] I recall sort of walking up and down the very short hallway,
which was the prison hall and looking in on the prisoners.
And they're basically lounging around on their beds.
I felt it was like a day in summer camp.
[Zimbardo] The first day I said,
"This might be a very long and very boring experiment,"
because it's conceivable nothing will ever happen.
[Eshleman] I arrived independently at the conclusion
that this experiment must have been put together
to prove a point about prisons being a cruel and inhumane place.
And therefore, I would do my part, to help those results come about.
I was a confrontational and arrogant 18 year old at the time
and I said "somebody outta stir things up a bit here."
[Prisoner] Fuck this experiment and fuck that Zimbardo!
[Narrator] On the second morning, prisoners decided to stir things up as well.
The guards found some of them had used their beds to barricade their cell.
Prisoner 8612 was one of the ring leaders of the rebellion.
[yelling] ...Fucking simulation! It's a fucking simulated experiment!
[Indistinct yelling]
[Zimbardo] Initially I was stunned.
I didn't expect a rebellion because not much happened.
And it wasn't clear what they were rebelling against,
but they were rebelling against the status,
rebelling against being anonymous,
against having to follow orders from these other students.
[Narrator] As punishment for the rebellion,
prisoner 8612 was put in the hole and the guards turned on the other prisoners.
[Zimbardo] The guards felt that they now had to up the ante of being tough.
The prisoners made the mistake of beginning to use profanity against the guards
in a very personalized way.
So not against the guards, but now "you little punk" "you big shit" and stuff.
And the guards got furious.
[Guard] Everybody up! Everybody get up!
Well gentlemen, here it is time for count.
[Narrator] Prisoners were repeatedly woken in the middle of the night.
The guards made them do menial physical tasks
and clean out toilets with their bare hands.
[Eshleman] We made it a point not to give them any sense of comfort
or what to expect.
Anything could happen to them at any time,
including being rousted from their sleep at any hour.
And forced to stand up in a line and have me hurl insults at them
and make them do exercises.
When you interrupt people's sleep, they tend to become a little disoriented.
And since there was no daylight in the prison, they had no idea whether it was night or day.
I think that I was the instigator of this
whole schedule of harrassment.
[Narrator] The harassment of the guards took it's toll on rebellion leader 8612.
He told Zimbardo he wanted to leave the experiment.
Zimbardo responded not as a psychologist but as a prison superintendent.
[Zimbardo] I said, "Well, I can see to it the guards don't hassle you personally
and in return all I would like is some information from time to time
about what the prisoners are doing."
So essentially I'm saying "I'd like you to be a snitch, an informant."
And I said "think it over and if you still want to leave, fine."
[Narrator] Confused, prisoner 8612 returned to his cell
and told the other prisoners that no one could leave.
[Zimbardo] He believed we wouldn't let him go, although we never said that.
But the fact that he was the ring leader of the rebellion
and he told the other prisoners "they won't let you leave,"
that really transformed the experiment into a prison.
[Prisoner] I was told I couldn't quit. And at that point, I just felt totally hopeless.
More hopeless than I had ever felt before.
[Narrator] Soon after returning to his cell,
prisoner 8612 started showing signs of severe distress.
[Prisoner 8612] Goddammit. Fucked up! You don't know, you don't know.
I mean, God, I mean Jesus Christ, I'm burning up inside, don't you know?
[Zimbardo] He came up with a plan that if he acted crazy,
we would have to release him.
[Prisoner 8612] I feel fucked up inside, I feel really fucked up inside. You don't know.
I gotta go to a doctor, anything. I can't stay here, I'm fucked up.
I don't know how to explain it, I'm fucked up inside! And I want out!
[Zimbardo] It starts with make-believe and then he's doing it and cursing and screaming.
You know, whatever that little boundary is, he moved across,
not that he became really crazy, but he became excessively disturbed.
So much so, we immediately said, "We have to release him."
[Korpi--prisoner 8612] As an experience, it was unique.
I've never screamed so loud in my life.
Never been so upset in my life,
and it was an experience of being out of control.
[Narrator] The boundary between reality and make-believe
was to become blurred even for Zimbardo.
A rumor circulated that released prisoner 8612 would return with friends
to liberate the remaining prisoners.
[Zimbardo] I quickly convinced myself that
my most important function was not to allow this prison liberation to occur.
And what could I do to keep my prison going?
Not the experiment going.
[Narrator] The prison was dismantled
and the prisoners were moved another part of the building.
Zimbardo waited in the empty corridor preparing to tell 8612
and his friends that the study was over.
When a colleague appeared
and began asking questions about the scientific basis of the research.
[Zimbardo] I'm trying to get rid of him and then he says,
"What's the independent variable?"
I got furious, because he doesn't understand that there's a riot about to take place,
that this prison is about to erupt.
I had totally lost this whole other identity of scientist, researcher, psychologist.
[Narrator] The rumored jailbreak never materialized.
The guards had dismantled the prison for nothing
and had to rebuild it.
They took their frustration out on the prisoners.
[Zimbardo] They escalated again the level of control.
the level of dominance, the level of humiliating behavior.
[Narrator] 819 was the next prisoner to rebel against the harassment of the guards.
He barricaded himself in his cell and refused to take part in the count.
[Guard] You're not only not getting cigarettes,
but for as long as this cell's blockaded
you're going to be in solitary when you get out.
[Narrator] For 819's disobedience, the guards made his cellmates do mindless work.
This undermined any vestige of solidarity amongst the prisoners
who now chose to accept the tyranny of the guards
rather than risk further harassment.
[Eshleman] That was one of the surprising things to me was that
there was so little that the prisoners did to support one another
after we started our campaign of divide and conquer.
[Narrator] Isolated and distraught, prisoner 819
told Zimbardo he wanted to leave.
[Zimbardo] While I'm interviewing 819, and saying,
"Okay, it's all over, thank you for your participation.
I'll give you money for the whole two weeks, even though you're leaving early."
He hears the prisoners shouting: "819 did a bad thing."
[Prisoners] Prisoner 819 did a bad thing. Prisoner 819 did a bad thing.
And he said, "I can't leave." And he's crying.
And he said, "I can't leave."
And I said, "What do you mean you can't leave?"
And he said, "No, I have to go back because I don't want them to think I'm a bad prisoner."
And that's when I really flipped out that in such a short time
a college student's thinking could become so distorted.
I said, "You're not a bad prisoner.
"You're not a prisoner. And this is not a prison."
And it was just this thing where
he opened up his eyes, really like a cloud being lifted.
[Narrator] Seeing things clearly, prisoner 819 reverted to his original request and was released.
To replace him, the experimenters called in one of their reserves from the standby list.
[Ramsay] I got a phone call saying, "Are you still available as an alternate?"
Kind of a cheery, female secretary voice.
And I said, "Yes, sure."
And so she said, "Could you start this afternoon?"
And I said, "Yes, sure."
And my role in the experiment really began.
I was blindfolded and then stripped and supposedly deloused.
[Zimbardo] He came into a madhouse, full blown.
All of us, had gradually acclimated to the increasing level of aggression,
increasing powerlessness of the prisoners,
increasing dominance of the guards.
And he comes in and says, "What's happening here?" to the other prisoners.
And they said "Yeah, you better not make trouble,
it's really terrible, it's a real prison."
And he says, "I'm out of here, I don't want this."
And they said "No, you can't leave.
Once you're here, you're stuck. This is a real prison."
[Guard] 416 put your hands in the air or why don't you play Frankenstein?
293 you can be the bride of Frankenstein, you stand here.
[Narrator] Prisoner 416 was soon subjected to the harassment of Dave Eshleman,
nicknamed John Wayne because of his macho attitude.
[Guard] 416 I want you to walk over here like Frankenstein and say that you love 2093.
That ain't a Frankenstein walk!
[Eshleman] I made the decision that I would be
as intimidating, as cold, as cruel as possible.
[Prisoner 416] I love you 2093. [Guard] Get up close! Get up close!
[Prisoner 416] I love you 2093. I love you 2093.
[Guard] You get down here and do ten pushups!
[Eshleman] I had just watched a movie called Cool Hand Luke
and the mean intimidating southern prison warden character in that film
really was my inspiration for the role that I created for myself.
[Zimbardo] He was creative in his evil.
He would think of very ingenious ways to degrade, to demean the prisoners.
[Guard] What if I told you to get down on that floor and fuck the floor
what would you do then?
[Zimbardo] One of the best guards, was also on that shift
and instead of confronting the bad guard, the sadistic guard
essentially, because he didn't want to see what was happening,
he became the gofer, he went out to get the food and things of this kind.
And that left the John Wayne guard and the other guard on that shift to be dominant.
[One of the guards] We were continually called upon to act
in a way that is contrary to what I really feel inside.
Just continually giving out shit.
It's really just one of the most oppressive things you can do.
[Guard] 416, while they do pushups, you sing Amazing Grace.
Ready? Down.
[prisoner singing]
[Guard] Keep going.
[Narrator] The madness of the experiment started to affect 416.
[prisoner singing]
[Guard] Keep going!
>>[Prisoner 416] I began feeling like, I was losing my identity, until I wasn't Clay.
I was 416.
I was really my number and 416 was going to decide what to do.
[Narrator] Prisoner 416 decided to go on a hunger strike.
[Ramsay] They were pushing my limits,
but here was the thing that I could do,
that could push their limits.
After I had missed a couple meals,
I saw this was not a matter of indifference to the guards.
I was making headway, they were upset.
[Eshleman] I thought, "How dare this newcomer come in and try to change
everything that we had worked for the first three days to set up.
And by God, he's going to suffer for that."
[Narrator] Frustrated by his continued defiance,
John Wayne threw prisoner 416 into the hole.
After punishing the other prisoners, for his disobedience,
John Wayne encouraged them to vent their anger at 416 directly.
[Prisoner] Thank you, 416. [bangs on door]
[Guard] Ok, 209. [Prisoner] Thank you, 416.
[Eshleman] We would use our nightsticks to bang on the door and we would kick the door
so hard it must've shaken him very seriously inside.
Scared the life out of him.
[Ramsay] He yelled at me, and threatened me and actually sort of
smashed a sausage into my face to try to get me to open up.
But I didn't have any intention of eating until I was out.
[Zimbardo] 416 should've been, at some level, a hero
'cause he's willing to oppose the authority of the system.
In fact, the prisoners accept the guards definition of him as a troublemaker.
[Eshleman] I remember some of them saying: "Would you eat goddammit!"
"We're sick and tired of this."
And that was proof that there was no solidary, there was no support between the prisoners.
[Narrator] While 416 was still in the hole,
John Wayne made a final attempt to break him
by giving his fellow prisoners a choice.
They could vote to release him by making small sacrifice.
[Guard] You can give me your blankets and sleep on the bare mattress
or you can keep your blankets and 416 will stay in another day.
What will it be?
[Prisoners] I'll keep my blankets.
[Guard] What will it be over here?
[Prisoners] I'll keep my blankets.
[Guard] How about 536?
[Prisoners] I'll give you my blankets Mr. Correctional Officer.
[Guard] We don't want your blankets
[Guard] We got 3 in favor of keeping their blankets.
We got 3 against 1.
Keep your blankets.
416 you're going to be in there for a while, so just get used to it.
[Eshleman] The study showed that power corrupts
and how difficult it is for people who are the victims of abuse to stand up and defend themselves.
Why doesn't anybody who is being abused by a spouse or something like that
just say "stop it?"
And we realize now that it's not as easy as it sounds.
[Narrator] By the end of the 5th day, 4 prisoners had broken down and been released.
416 was on the second day of his hunger strike
and the experiment still had another 9 days to run.
At this point, a fellow psychologist visited Zimbardo's basement prison
and would witness the brutality of the experiment first hand.
[Zimbardo] The guards had lined up the prisoners to go to the toilet.
They had bags over their heads, chains on their feet,
and were marching by and I looked up.
And I saw this circus, this parade,
and I said, "Hey Chris, look at that."
[Christina Maslach] I looked up, and I began to feel sick to my stomach.
I had this just... chilling, sickening feeling
of watching this and you know, I just turned away.
And I just let loose in this emotional tyranny.
I just lost it.
I was angry, scared, I was in tears.
[Zimbardo] And I'm furious,
saying you know, we had a big argument.
You're supposed to be a psychologist.
This is interesting dynamic behavior and I'm going through this whole thing
the power of the situation.
And she says "No, no, it's that young boys are suffering
and you're responsible. You're letting it happen."
I said "Oh my god, of course you're right."
[Narrator] The next day, Zimbardo ended the experiment.
Studies like his stimulated heated debate about the ethics of using human subjects.
[Zimbardo] Really young men suffered verbally, physically.
Prisoners felt shame in their role.
Guards felt guilt.
So in that sense, it's unethical.
That is, nobody has the right, the power, the privilege to do that to other people.
[Narrator] In the wake of experiments like Zimbardo's and Milgrim's
ethical guidelines changed, introducing greater safeguards to protect participants.
In the Standford experiment, Zimbardo might have sped his volunteers distress
had he not taken on a dual role in the study.
[Zimbardo] If I was going to be the prison superintendent,
I should have had a colleague who was overseeing the experiment.
Who was in a position to stop it at any point.
Or I should've been the principal investigator
and get somebody who was going to be the prison superintendent.
I realized that was a big mistake, to play both those roles.
And by shifting back and forth.
[Narrator] After the experiment, Zimbardo brought all the participants together
to talk about their experiences.
John Wayne would now come face to face
with the hunger striker that he had tormented.
[Eshleman] I was a little worried.
I said "Oh my god, he's really gonna come down on me hard now."
Now that we're on equal footing.
[Ramsay] It harms me.
[Eshleman] How did it harm you? How does it harm you?
Just to think ((cross talk)) you know people can be like that?
[Ramsay] Yeah, it let me in on some knowledge
that I've never experienced first hand.
Because I know what you can turn into,
I know what you're willing to do.
[Eshleman] When I look back on it now, I behaved appallingly.
You know, it was just horrid to look at.
I think I tried to explain to him that at the time,
what you experience and what you hated so much
was a role that I was playing, that's not me at all.
[Ramsay] He was trying to dissociate himself from what he had done.
That did make me angry.
Everyone was acting out a part and playing a role:
prisoners, guards, staff,
everyone was acting out a part.
It's when you start contributing to the script,
that's you and thus it's something you should take responsibility for.
[Eshleman] Uh, I didn't see where it was really harmful.
It was degrading and that was part of my particular little experiment
to see how I could--
[Ramsay] Your particular little experiment?!
Why don't you tell me about that.
[Eshleman] Yes, I was running... I was running a little experiment of my own.
[Ramsay] Tell me about your little experiments, I'm curious.
[Eshleman] I wanted to see what kind of verbal abuse that people can take
before they start objecting, before they start lashing back.
[Eshleman] If I have any regret, right now,
it's that I made that decision, because it would've been interesting
to see what would have happened had I not decided to force things.
It could be that I only accelerated them, that the same things would've happened.
But we'll never know.
[Narrator] If the extreme nature of Dave Eshleman's behavior tested the prisoners,
it also presented the other guards with the choice:
to intervene, or not.
[Eshleman] It surprised me that no one said anything to stop me.
They just accepted what I'd say.
And no one questioned my authority at all.
And it really shocked me, why didn't people say when I started to get so abusive?
I started to get so profane, and still people didn't say anything.
[Zimbardo] There were a few guards who hated to see the prisoners suffer,
they never did anything that would be demeaning of the prisoners.
The interesting thing is, none of the good guards ever intervened
in the behavior of the guards who gradually became more and more sadistical over time.
We like to think there is this core of human nature that good people can't do bad things.
And that good people will dominate over bad situations.
In fact, one way to look at this prison study is that
we put good people in an evil place
and we saw who won.
And the sad message in this case is, the evil place won over the good people.
[Eshleman] It did show some very interesting and maybe some unpleasant things
about human behavior.
It seems like every century, every decade that we go through,
we're suffering the same kind of atrocities and you need to understand
why these things happen,
you need to understand why people behave like this.