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Quiet Rage
The Stanford Prison Experiment
| Length: | 50 min |
| Released: | 1992 |
| Ages: |
High School College Adult |
Philip Zimbardo skyrocketed to infamy in the social psychology world after leading the notorious Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971. The experiment was designed to test the virtues of "good" and "evil" and to determine whether average people, when placed under certain circumstances, can be prompted to behave cruelly.
Experimenters randomly assigned male, college-aged volunteers to the role of either prisoner or guard and placed them in a simulated prison on Stanford University's campus. The experiment, which was slated to last for two weeks, was terminated after just six days, when prisoners began to demonstrate signs of mental distress, including depression, resulting from the guards' harsh treatment. The dramatic outcomes of the experiment, detailed in Quiet Rage, remain relevant today as situations like the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib raise questions about the motives behind such brutality.
Experimenters randomly assigned male, college-aged volunteers to the role of either prisoner or guard and placed them in a simulated prison on Stanford University's campus. The experiment, which was slated to last for two weeks, was terminated after just six days, when prisoners began to demonstrate signs of mental distress, including depression, resulting from the guards' harsh treatment. The dramatic outcomes of the experiment, detailed in Quiet Rage, remain relevant today as situations like the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib raise questions about the motives behind such brutality.
