Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
All right, just like introduce you.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey, guys, welcome back to my channel, and welcome to
another very interesting video on a highly requested topic.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Today, I've brought in my cousin Janelle. Some of you
may recognize her.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's been a hot minute since you were on my
channel though, like in a full video. Yeah, it's been
a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Shout up, homies. I'm back in the camera and.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Now you're educated, so you're here to help us with
today's video, your girl.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
I graduated with my degree in psychology and now I'm
being my master's in mental health counseling.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
So I guess I kind of have an.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Idea of what's going on, but you can help explain this.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, it is really interesting, just even if.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
You don't have anything to do with this, like background,
it's so intriguing and just weird.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It is very weird.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
It's pretty mind so weird. Stanford Prison Experiment was an
experiment that was done in nineteen seventy one at Stanford
University where the smart people go, and it went from
August fourteenth through August's twentieth, so.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Really not that long. It wasn't a very long experiment. Today, Yeah,
it was supposed to go a lot longer, but it
could not. It had to end. You'll see why.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
The whole idea of it was to see the psychological
effects unperceived power.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
And this specific experiment was focusing on the dynamic between
a prisoner and a prison guard.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Kind of see the dynamic of one person being the
guard who has tons of power and can tell this
other person, the prisoner, to do anything, and really they
strip away their power, they strip them away as humans
and kind of see what the effects are really like
dehumanizing someone.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
And it's kind of to see how far how.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Much abuse someone will take before they say okay, enough
is enough.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And how far will someone on the other side take
things before feeling bad or having a conscience.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Out of seventy five possible candidates to be in the experiment,
twenty five of them were chosen. Roughly half of them
were assigned to be prison guards, roughly half of them
were assigned.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
To be prisoners, and they were randomly assigned.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Once they were chosen, they were given a small site
test to make sure that they didn't have any you know,
pre existing conditions or mental illnesses that needed to be
addressed beforehand, and just make sure that everyone was on
the same laying field.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
The participants were paid fifteen.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Bucks a day, so bucks a day to be a
prison well.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
That was back in the seventies as well, but most
of the time, when you're i know, being a prisoner,
I'd be like, oh.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
No, yeah, I'm not going to take that for fifteen
bucks for the day.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So they actually set up a mock prison in the
basement of Stanford at the school, and basically they rigged
the basement to have like little fake jail cells in
it to set it up like a real prison.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
They wanted to make it seem as real as possible.
It wasn't just like going to classroom tend like you're
in prison.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And it's important to keep in mind the people that
were doing it knew that this was fake. They knew
that this was an experience, so like they were trying
to trick them into thinking they actually were in jail.
That's kind of what I thought when I first learned
about this experiment, because I couldn't believe anyone would acually signed.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
To this totally voluntary and a lot of the people
that volunteered in the experiment kept talking about they needed
a summer job.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
And they're like, it was either doing this or flipping patties,
and I would rather do this.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I was like, why I would rather flip patt prisoner.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
In addition to creating little jail cells, there was also
a small room called solitary confinement that they would put
prisoners in if they would misbehave or you know, not
follow instructions properly, which is real absolutely, Yeah, And it
was a really small room, didn't have any light in it,
no windows, basically just you go insane.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, it's basically like a little time out.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Room, but for a long time by yourself, with no
concept of time or when you're not light you're just.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Sitting in a dark room.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Small by R fucked up obviously.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Even though they knew they were all just students participating
in this experiment, they wanted it to feel as real
as possible. So they actually had half of the people
doing it, the prisoner guards, wearing military uniforms well.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
As silver reflective sunglasses.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
And that was to kind of they didn't want the
prisoners to be able to, you know, look at them
eye to eye.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
They wanted to kind of.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, separate the like dehumanize.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah, exactly and just really make them feel like they're
kind of a hole different on a whole different.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Level than the prisoners.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Yes, then the prisoners were forced to wear real, you know,
jumpsuits as if they were in prison, and they took
away their names, which is really interesting. They named them
just numbers like prisoner one, two, four, eight or whatever.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
So they completely take your identity from you, strip you
from everything you know, and throw you into something different.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Not to mention, while they're doing all of this, they're
completely humiliating and you know, dehumanizing you, saying that you're worthless,
making fun of your body.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I mean, they did a whole strip shirts. As soon
as they came in.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Of course, the guards started making fun of the genitals
and humiliating them, and really it's a start of what's
known as the degradation process, which not only prisons but
lots of military type outfits used.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
That process completely degraded you, and there was really no
limits on what the guards were able to do because
the whole idea was they wanted to see how far
they could get.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And they also blindfolded these guys, so they had no
idea that they were just in the basement of their school,
so that makes it even more real feeling as well.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You could feel like you were really in some type
of jail.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So the first day of the experiment, nothing too interesting
or exciting really happened.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
They basically kind of just sat in their cells and
hung out. Weren't really making a fuss or complaining about
being in the cells.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Weren't, you know, talking back to the guards.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It was still an experiment at that point, Hello, how
you dealing it? And many of them said that at
this point they were still aware of the fact that
this was an experiment or a type of job for them,
and the fear hadn't set in. The realness of it
hadn't set in. But it was only the second day
when people started to act up. Only day two, the
prisoners took their mattresses and barricaded themselves in their jail
(05:52):
so that the prisoner guards couldn't come in to deal
with them.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, after day two.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
The prison guards got pissed. To say. There was one
guard in particular.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Named Dave Eshelman, and he was very determined to stir
up the pot and make things as troublesome as possible
for all of the prisoners. He was a guard, and
he wanted to show the prisoners whose boss.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
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 to eighteen year old at
(06:35):
the time, and I said, somebody ought to stir things
up a bit here.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So he started treating the prisoners really poorly, and of
course they started to react to this and act out.
Speaker 6 (06:45):
I think that I was the instigator of this whole
schedule of harassment.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Some of the meaningless work that the guards made the
prisoners do would be like get up in the middle
of the night and do meaningless work like scrub toilets
or bathrooms with their bare hands.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Or just just like manual hardly just yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
The thing to keep in mind is when you disrupt
someone's sleep pattern, I mean, they become super disoriented and
it's very unhealthy to have such a chopped up sleep
cycle and be woken up randomly, put to work, and
then put.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Back to sleep.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yes, yes, that would totally like screw with your mental state.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I feel like not to mention, there are no windows
in the basement, so the prisoners had no idea if
it was day or night. So they really didn't know
if when they were, you know, sleeping for the night,
if it was really night. They had no concept of time,
no concept of a schedule. It was like, get up,
clean the bathroom, all right, go back in yourself.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Eventually, one of the prisoners, the prisoner eight six one two,
decided he had enough of this bullshit and said.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
He wanted to leave.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Keep in mind, most of the time, when you're doing
some type of experiment, your participants are clearly able to
leave whenever they want to.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
If it's in the middle, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
No one's allowed to force you to stay for an experiment.
Even if you know there's a specific time you're always
allowed to leave, no one can force you to stay.
Two went up Tozimbardo and said, look, dude, I want
out of here. Instead of Zimborro acting like a psychologist
running the experiment, he.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
A professor that's employed at the school, right.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Saying okay, professionally, yes, you can leave the experiment.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Obviously, I'm not going to keep you here if you
don't want to be here.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Instead of saying that, he kind of took on the
role of prison superintendent, and instead of being able to
separate himself and become once again Professor Zimbardo, he was
the superintendent of the prison and really didn't want eight
six one.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Two to leave, so he said, no, man, he can't go.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
So eight six one two is saying that he's being
harassed by the guards and therefore it was time for
him to get out, and Zimbardo responded with, well, what
we can do is move you into a different section
to where the guards hopefully won't harassed you as much
and you should have a little bit more of a
quiet time. Now, obviously this isn't saying no, you can't leave,
but it's also not being diverting. Yeah, exactly, but him
(08:53):
being so upset and sleep deprived and delusional, he misinterpreted
that and went back to the other prisoners to them
that Zimbardi won't let anyone leave.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
So obviously, once these participants in this study thought that
they were actually not allowed to leave this place, that's
when shit really started to hit the fan and things
started to feel like an actual prison.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
So after eight six y one to two decided to stay.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
He actually became extremely mentally disturbed, to the point where
they forcefully had to let him go.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Damn it, fucked up.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
You don't know. You don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
I can't. I mean, Jesus Christ, I'm burning up inside.
Don't you know? I feel really fucked up at the time.
You don't know. I gotta go I to a doctor. Anything.
I can't say them I'm fucked up. I don't know
how to explain it.
Speaker 7 (09:36):
I'm fucked up inside now.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
As an experience that it was unique.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
I've never screamed so loud in my life.
Speaker 8 (09:47):
I've never been so upset in my life, and it
was an experience of being out of control.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
At that point, it was becoming, you know, a concern
of his mental health, and so they told him to leave.
So he was really worried that eight six one tw
was going to bring his friends back and try and
break out his prisoner. Yeah, he actually took down the
entire prison, moved it secretly to a different location while
they waited for eight six one two and his friends
to come back, and it never actually happened, so they
(10:14):
had to move the whole thing back over for no
apparent reason at all.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Dude, it seems like he was just like losing his mind.
The professor he was doing this, that's how serious he
was about it.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yeah, even in interviews doesn't deny the fact that you know,
he was taking it too far and he kind of
lost sight of what he really was doing.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, he definitely is like, yeah, I took it way
too So then there was prisoner eight one nine. Prisoner
eight one nine decided that he was done with this
shit too, wanted to leave the experiment, so he decided
to completely stop anticipating.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
In anything and locked himself in his cell.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
You're not only not getting a cigarette, but for as
long as sell as Lot hated, you're going to be
a solider.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And you get asked.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
The crazy thing was is that once eight one nine
it decided to not partake in any of the duties
that everyone else to partakes in. They actually punished the
other prisoner because of something that he had done.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
That is the worst that used to happen to me
at dance practice, Like someone would fuck up and like
everyone else would.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Have to do It's always like, so it really wanted
to take away any individualism that each prisoner had, give
the idea that they're all one group, and if one
person messes up, you're all going to pay for it.
It was almost a form of dictatorship in the way,
because the guards, you know, decided what's going to happen
for every single person. Everyone's getting the same treatment. If
one person messes up, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
You're all getting screwed for.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
But I don't understand those why they didn't try harder
to leave.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
If that was me, i'd be like, show me the
proof that I have to stay there, like they're bring
me the principle or something. So eventually, prisoner eight one
nine got really really sick of this and thought it
was better if he just left. So Zimmato said he
could leave, and he started kind of giving him a
little exit speech, you know, talking about his conversation, steps,
conversation whatever.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And as he was getting kind of the lowdown to head.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Out, the other prisoners started screaming Prisoner eight one nine
did a bad thing over and over again.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And after he heard this, he started crying and told
Zimbardo that he actually wanted to stay.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
He couldn't leave his prisoners behind. He didn't want to
disappoint them.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And this is when it started to hit Zimbardo that
maybe this was affecting the test subjects in a negative way,
maybe this was taking things a little too far, and
maybe they were just losing touch with reality a bit
too much.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
And it's crazy to see how fast things can turn.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
And this was the day four Day four.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
While prisoner eight one nine was having his little freak
out and crying, Simbardo kept saying over and over again,
this is an experiment.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
This is not a prison. You can leave all these things.
And then all of a sudden.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
He had this moment of clarity where it just he
could tell his eyes kind of cleared, and he could.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Almost like the fog cleared from his mind, and he realized, wait,
this really is an experiment.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
I'm not a prison. I don't have to be here.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not in jail.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I can completely leave on my own. Will yep so peaced.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
After he left, they found someone new to fill his spot,
prisoner for sixteen. And this guy was blindfolded, stripped, treated
like everyone else and put into a cell four.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Sixteen had a little bit of a different tactic.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
He wanted to try on the guards instead of going
with the flow and you know, taking all the punishments
and stuff or barricading your room.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
He decided to just kind of go on a hunger
strike and not eat.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Now you may think this is kind of harmless, but
this actually made the guards really angry because for once
someone wasn't following the protocol and their.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Rules, even if it was simple as I'm not eating that.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
So this guy, I mean, he literally just got there
and he's already on a hunger strike.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
And he already had i think going in.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
The idea of kind of disrupting things.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, yeah, wanting to test out.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
He had a clearer mind probably than the rest of
the guy, so he was probably more aware of the
fact that this was just an experiment.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
He's just trying to like add to these.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Not to mention.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
By the time that he was there, most of the
guards and prisoners, you know, had already been exposed to
this for long enough to have psychological change changes. So
it had been a few meals since he had eaten anything,
and the prison guards were getting really frustrated, so they
to throw him into solitary confinement and basically not let
him out for quite some time. While all the other
(14:06):
prisoners would go up to the door and bang on
it really hard and say thanks a lot.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Prison four one six. The guards had them do that,
and I think that.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Was their way of being like making him feel guilty,
of making him feel guilty, but at the same time
they have no choice but to do that.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
So by the end of the fifth day, by the
end of the fifth.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Day, four of the prisoners already pretty much had a
mental breakdown and had to leave.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
So another psychologist, Christina Maslek, actually came and Visitedzimbardo because
she kind of wanted to see the.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Experiment that he was running.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I was playing out, yeah, And so I think Simbardo
had the thought that she was going to come in
and be like, this is really cool, wow, you know, realistic, Yeah, wow,
good works.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (14:45):
The guards had lined up the prisoners to go to
the toilet, had bangs over their head, chains on their feet,
and when watching by, and I looked up and I
saw this, this circus, this parade, and I said, hey, Chris,
you know, look at.
Speaker 8 (14:57):
That, and looked up and I just began to feel
s sick to my stomach. I had this just chilling,
sickening feeling of watching this and I just you know,
I just turned away and I just let loose in
this emotional tiring, I just lost it.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
I was angry, and I think this was kind of
the push that is, and Borto needed to hear from
his you know, fellow colleague, being like, what are you doing.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
This is not an experiment, This is torture.
Speaker 7 (15:18):
This you cannot do this, And I'm curious. I'm saying,
you're supposed to be you know, we had a big arm.
You're supposed to be a psychologist. This is this interesting
dynamic behavior, and such a few did. But I'm going
through this whole thing says no, no, young boys are suffering,
and you are responsible. You're letting it happen. He said,
Oh my god, of course you're right. So in that sense,
it's it's unethical. That is, nobody has the right, the power,
(15:39):
the privilege to do that to other people.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
So on day six.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
The next days, Embardo decided to stop the experiment. But
one thing I think is really important to take away
from this is, I'm sure you know a lot of
people who have not personally experienced an abusive relationship don't
understand why that person who's in an abusive relationship cannot
leave or you stay with someone who's so awful, and
people don't understand that it's not that simple. I mean,
(16:04):
this is first hand proof right here that even something
that's voluntary, it is really not as easy as it
sounds to just decide to leave a bad situation that
you're in, whether that's you know, a relationship romantically or
with your family or your friends or other.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Things like that.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
You know, people feeling like they have no choice, like
there's no other way out of this, or a lot.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Of times because they don't want to seem like quitters.
I mean you look at the prisoner who went back
in because they were, you know, yelling at him and
belittling him, saying you're basically you did a bad thing
you're trying to leave. Obviously, this experiment was really interesting
and did show some pretty unique things, but overall it
did have a few flaws. Mainly, the sample size is
way too small. I mean, you really can't run a
(16:46):
legitimate experiment with only twenty five participants in half of
them leaving and new people coming in.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
It's not there's yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I don't think this experiment worked out so well.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
And also if Simbardo was going to make it experiment
like this and he wanted to participate and you know,
be the prison superintendent, he should have had another psychologist
stay on the outside and look in and make sure
that everything is still running smoothly, because you can't be
the psychologist running the experiment as well as a participant
in the experience.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It went from like a clear experiment first school and
for research purposes to like pretend times make again, it's
so weird. Obviously, he got a lot of hate from
people that were reading about this, Like, dude, seriously.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
People made the.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Argument that it was extremely unethical for Zimmato to take
in college students, even if they were participants, have them
go through such trauma just to try and you know,
get some information. It was because of cases like this
that they actually passed several laws at you know, make
clear lines of what you can and cannot do in experiments.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
But yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I had no idea that there are all these like
whack ass psych experiments, and I was thinking, if you
guys like this video, give it a thumbs up. Janelle
can join me in a series about these bizarre A
lot of them.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
People have done some weird things, but that's it for
us today.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Guys, be sure to let me know what your thoughts
are on the Stanford prison experiment below. Did you think
it was worth the information we got out of it,
or should have never been done in the first place.
Definitely let us know your thoughts and we will see
you next time.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Bye.
All right, just like introduce you.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey, guys, welcome back to my channel, and welcome to
another very interesting video on a highly requested topic.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Today, I've brought in my cousin Janelle. Some of you
may recognize her.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's been a hot minute since you were on my
channel though, like in a full video. Yeah, it's been
a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Shout up, homies. I'm back in the camera and.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Now you're educated, so you're here to help us with
today's video, your girl.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
I graduated with my degree in psychology and now I'm
being my master's in mental health counseling.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
So I guess I kind of have an.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Idea of what's going on, but you can help explain this.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, it is really interesting, just even if.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
You don't have anything to do with this, like background,
it's so intriguing and just weird.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It is very weird.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
It's pretty mind so weird. Stanford Prison Experiment was an
experiment that was done in nineteen seventy one at Stanford
University where the smart people go, and it went from
August fourteenth through August's twentieth, so.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Really not that long. It wasn't a very long experiment. Today, Yeah,
it was supposed to go a lot longer, but it
could not. It had to end. You'll see why.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
The whole idea of it was to see the psychological
effects unperceived power.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
And this specific experiment was focusing on the dynamic between
a prisoner and a prison guard.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Kind of see the dynamic of one person being the
guard who has tons of power and can tell this
other person, the prisoner, to do anything, and really they
strip away their power, they strip them away as humans
and kind of see what the effects are really like
dehumanizing someone.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
And it's kind of to see how far how.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Much abuse someone will take before they say okay, enough
is enough.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And how far will someone on the other side take
things before feeling bad or having a conscience.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Out of seventy five possible candidates to be in the experiment,
twenty five of them were chosen. Roughly half of them
were assigned to be prison guards, roughly half of them
were assigned.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
To be prisoners, and they were randomly assigned.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Once they were chosen, they were given a small site
test to make sure that they didn't have any you know,
pre existing conditions or mental illnesses that needed to be
addressed beforehand, and just make sure that everyone was on
the same laying field.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
The participants were paid fifteen.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Bucks a day, so bucks a day to be a
prison well.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
That was back in the seventies as well, but most
of the time, when you're i know, being a prisoner,
I'd be like, oh.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
No, yeah, I'm not going to take that for fifteen
bucks for the day.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So they actually set up a mock prison in the
basement of Stanford at the school, and basically they rigged
the basement to have like little fake jail cells in
it to set it up like a real prison.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
They wanted to make it seem as real as possible.
It wasn't just like going to classroom tend like you're
in prison.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And it's important to keep in mind the people that
were doing it knew that this was fake. They knew
that this was an experience, so like they were trying
to trick them into thinking they actually were in jail.
That's kind of what I thought when I first learned
about this experiment, because I couldn't believe anyone would acually signed.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
To this totally voluntary and a lot of the people
that volunteered in the experiment kept talking about they needed
a summer job.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
And they're like, it was either doing this or flipping patties,
and I would rather do this.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I was like, why I would rather flip patt prisoner.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
In addition to creating little jail cells, there was also
a small room called solitary confinement that they would put
prisoners in if they would misbehave or you know, not
follow instructions properly, which is real absolutely, Yeah, And it
was a really small room, didn't have any light in it,
no windows, basically just you go insane.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, it's basically like a little time out.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Room, but for a long time by yourself, with no
concept of time or when you're not light you're just.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Sitting in a dark room.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Small by R fucked up obviously.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Even though they knew they were all just students participating
in this experiment, they wanted it to feel as real
as possible. So they actually had half of the people
doing it, the prisoner guards, wearing military uniforms well.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
As silver reflective sunglasses.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
And that was to kind of they didn't want the
prisoners to be able to, you know, look at them
eye to eye.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
They wanted to kind of.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yeah, separate the like dehumanize.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah, exactly and just really make them feel like they're
kind of a hole different on a whole different.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Level than the prisoners.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Yes, then the prisoners were forced to wear real, you know,
jumpsuits as if they were in prison, and they took
away their names, which is really interesting. They named them
just numbers like prisoner one, two, four, eight or whatever.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
So they completely take your identity from you, strip you
from everything you know, and throw you into something different.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Not to mention, while they're doing all of this, they're
completely humiliating and you know, dehumanizing you, saying that you're worthless,
making fun of your body.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I mean, they did a whole strip shirts. As soon
as they came in.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Of course, the guards started making fun of the genitals
and humiliating them, and really it's a start of what's
known as the degradation process, which not only prisons but
lots of military type outfits used.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
That process completely degraded you, and there was really no
limits on what the guards were able to do because
the whole idea was they wanted to see how far
they could get.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And they also blindfolded these guys, so they had no
idea that they were just in the basement of their school,
so that makes it even more real feeling as well.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You could feel like you were really in some type
of jail.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So the first day of the experiment, nothing too interesting
or exciting really happened.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
They basically kind of just sat in their cells and
hung out. Weren't really making a fuss or complaining about
being in the cells.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Weren't, you know, talking back to the guards.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It was still an experiment at that point, Hello, how
you dealing it? And many of them said that at
this point they were still aware of the fact that
this was an experiment or a type of job for them,
and the fear hadn't set in. The realness of it
hadn't set in. But it was only the second day
when people started to act up. Only day two, the
prisoners took their mattresses and barricaded themselves in their jail
(05:52):
so that the prisoner guards couldn't come in to deal
with them.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, after day two.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
The prison guards got pissed. To say. There was one
guard in particular.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Named Dave Eshelman, and he was very determined to stir
up the pot and make things as troublesome as possible
for all of the prisoners. He was a guard, and
he wanted to show the prisoners whose boss.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
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 to eighteen year old at
(06:35):
the time, and I said, somebody ought to stir things
up a bit here.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So he started treating the prisoners really poorly, and of
course they started to react to this and act out.
Speaker 6 (06:45):
I think that I was the instigator of this whole
schedule of harassment.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Some of the meaningless work that the guards made the
prisoners do would be like get up in the middle
of the night and do meaningless work like scrub toilets
or bathrooms with their bare hands.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Or just just like manual hardly just yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
The thing to keep in mind is when you disrupt
someone's sleep pattern, I mean, they become super disoriented and
it's very unhealthy to have such a chopped up sleep
cycle and be woken up randomly, put to work, and
then put.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Back to sleep.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yes, yes, that would totally like screw with your mental state.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I feel like not to mention, there are no windows
in the basement, so the prisoners had no idea if
it was day or night. So they really didn't know
if when they were, you know, sleeping for the night,
if it was really night. They had no concept of time,
no concept of a schedule. It was like, get up,
clean the bathroom, all right, go back in yourself.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Eventually, one of the prisoners, the prisoner eight six one two,
decided he had enough of this bullshit and said.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
He wanted to leave.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Keep in mind, most of the time, when you're doing
some type of experiment, your participants are clearly able to
leave whenever they want to.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
If it's in the middle, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
No one's allowed to force you to stay for an experiment.
Even if you know there's a specific time you're always
allowed to leave, no one can force you to stay.
Two went up Tozimbardo and said, look, dude, I want
out of here. Instead of Zimborro acting like a psychologist
running the experiment, he.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
A professor that's employed at the school, right.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Saying okay, professionally, yes, you can leave the experiment.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Obviously, I'm not going to keep you here if you
don't want to be here.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Instead of saying that, he kind of took on the
role of prison superintendent, and instead of being able to
separate himself and become once again Professor Zimbardo, he was
the superintendent of the prison and really didn't want eight
six one.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Two to leave, so he said, no, man, he can't go.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
So eight six one two is saying that he's being
harassed by the guards and therefore it was time for
him to get out, and Zimbardo responded with, well, what
we can do is move you into a different section
to where the guards hopefully won't harassed you as much
and you should have a little bit more of a
quiet time. Now, obviously this isn't saying no, you can't leave,
but it's also not being diverting. Yeah, exactly, but him
(08:53):
being so upset and sleep deprived and delusional, he misinterpreted
that and went back to the other prisoners to them
that Zimbardi won't let anyone leave.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
So obviously, once these participants in this study thought that
they were actually not allowed to leave this place, that's
when shit really started to hit the fan and things
started to feel like an actual prison.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
So after eight six y one to two decided to stay.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
He actually became extremely mentally disturbed, to the point where
they forcefully had to let him go.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Damn it, fucked up.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
You don't know. You don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
I can't. I mean, Jesus Christ, I'm burning up inside.
Don't you know? I feel really fucked up at the time.
You don't know. I gotta go I to a doctor. Anything.
I can't say them I'm fucked up. I don't know
how to explain it.
Speaker 7 (09:36):
I'm fucked up inside now.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
As an experience that it was unique.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
I've never screamed so loud in my life.
Speaker 8 (09:47):
I've never been so upset in my life, and it
was an experience of being out of control.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
At that point, it was becoming, you know, a concern
of his mental health, and so they told him to leave.
So he was really worried that eight six one tw
was going to bring his friends back and try and
break out his prisoner. Yeah, he actually took down the
entire prison, moved it secretly to a different location while
they waited for eight six one two and his friends
to come back, and it never actually happened, so they
(10:14):
had to move the whole thing back over for no
apparent reason at all.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Dude, it seems like he was just like losing his mind.
The professor he was doing this, that's how serious he
was about it.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yeah, even in interviews doesn't deny the fact that you know,
he was taking it too far and he kind of
lost sight of what he really was doing.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, he definitely is like, yeah, I took it way
too So then there was prisoner eight one nine. Prisoner
eight one nine decided that he was done with this
shit too, wanted to leave the experiment, so he decided
to completely stop anticipating.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
In anything and locked himself in his cell.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
You're not only not getting a cigarette, but for as
long as sell as Lot hated, you're going to be
a solider.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And you get asked.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
The crazy thing was is that once eight one nine
it decided to not partake in any of the duties
that everyone else to partakes in. They actually punished the
other prisoner because of something that he had done.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
That is the worst that used to happen to me
at dance practice, Like someone would fuck up and like
everyone else would.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Have to do It's always like, so it really wanted
to take away any individualism that each prisoner had, give
the idea that they're all one group, and if one
person messes up, you're all going to pay for it.
It was almost a form of dictatorship in the way,
because the guards, you know, decided what's going to happen
for every single person. Everyone's getting the same treatment. If
one person messes up, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
You're all getting screwed for.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
But I don't understand those why they didn't try harder
to leave.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
If that was me, i'd be like, show me the
proof that I have to stay there, like they're bring
me the principle or something. So eventually, prisoner eight one
nine got really really sick of this and thought it
was better if he just left. So Zimmato said he
could leave, and he started kind of giving him a
little exit speech, you know, talking about his conversation, steps,
conversation whatever.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And as he was getting kind of the lowdown to head.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Out, the other prisoners started screaming Prisoner eight one nine
did a bad thing over and over again.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And after he heard this, he started crying and told
Zimbardo that he actually wanted to stay.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
He couldn't leave his prisoners behind. He didn't want to
disappoint them.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And this is when it started to hit Zimbardo that
maybe this was affecting the test subjects in a negative way,
maybe this was taking things a little too far, and
maybe they were just losing touch with reality a bit
too much.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
And it's crazy to see how fast things can turn.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
And this was the day four Day four.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
While prisoner eight one nine was having his little freak
out and crying, Simbardo kept saying over and over again,
this is an experiment.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
This is not a prison. You can leave all these things.
And then all of a sudden.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
He had this moment of clarity where it just he
could tell his eyes kind of cleared, and he could.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Almost like the fog cleared from his mind, and he realized, wait,
this really is an experiment.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
I'm not a prison. I don't have to be here.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not in jail.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I can completely leave on my own. Will yep so peaced.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
After he left, they found someone new to fill his spot,
prisoner for sixteen. And this guy was blindfolded, stripped, treated
like everyone else and put into a cell four.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Sixteen had a little bit of a different tactic.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
He wanted to try on the guards instead of going
with the flow and you know, taking all the punishments
and stuff or barricading your room.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
He decided to just kind of go on a hunger
strike and not eat.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Now you may think this is kind of harmless, but
this actually made the guards really angry because for once
someone wasn't following the protocol and their.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Rules, even if it was simple as I'm not eating that.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
So this guy, I mean, he literally just got there
and he's already on a hunger strike.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
And he already had i think going in.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
The idea of kind of disrupting things.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, yeah, wanting to test out.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
He had a clearer mind probably than the rest of
the guy, so he was probably more aware of the
fact that this was just an experiment.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
He's just trying to like add to these.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Not to mention.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
By the time that he was there, most of the
guards and prisoners, you know, had already been exposed to
this for long enough to have psychological change changes. So
it had been a few meals since he had eaten anything,
and the prison guards were getting really frustrated, so they
to throw him into solitary confinement and basically not let
him out for quite some time. While all the other
(14:06):
prisoners would go up to the door and bang on
it really hard and say thanks a lot.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Prison four one six. The guards had them do that,
and I think that.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Was their way of being like making him feel guilty,
of making him feel guilty, but at the same time
they have no choice but to do that.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
So by the end of the fifth day, by the
end of the fifth.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Day, four of the prisoners already pretty much had a
mental breakdown and had to leave.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
So another psychologist, Christina Maslek, actually came and Visitedzimbardo because
she kind of wanted to see the.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Experiment that he was running.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I was playing out, yeah, And so I think Simbardo
had the thought that she was going to come in
and be like, this is really cool, wow, you know, realistic, Yeah, wow,
good works.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (14:45):
The guards had lined up the prisoners to go to
the toilet, had bangs over their head, chains on their feet,
and when watching by, and I looked up and I
saw this, this circus, this parade, and I said, hey, Chris,
you know, look at.
Speaker 8 (14:57):
That, and looked up and I just began to feel
s sick to my stomach. I had this just chilling,
sickening feeling of watching this and I just you know,
I just turned away and I just let loose in
this emotional tiring, I just lost it.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
I was angry, and I think this was kind of
the push that is, and Borto needed to hear from
his you know, fellow colleague, being like, what are you doing.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
This is not an experiment, This is torture.
Speaker 7 (15:18):
This you cannot do this, And I'm curious. I'm saying,
you're supposed to be you know, we had a big arm.
You're supposed to be a psychologist. This is this interesting
dynamic behavior, and such a few did. But I'm going
through this whole thing says no, no, young boys are suffering,
and you are responsible. You're letting it happen. He said,
Oh my god, of course you're right. So in that sense,
it's it's unethical. That is, nobody has the right, the power,
(15:39):
the privilege to do that to other people.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
So on day six.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
The next days, Embardo decided to stop the experiment. But
one thing I think is really important to take away
from this is, I'm sure you know a lot of
people who have not personally experienced an abusive relationship don't
understand why that person who's in an abusive relationship cannot
leave or you stay with someone who's so awful, and
people don't understand that it's not that simple. I mean,
(16:04):
this is first hand proof right here that even something
that's voluntary, it is really not as easy as it
sounds to just decide to leave a bad situation that
you're in, whether that's you know, a relationship romantically or
with your family or your friends or other.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Things like that.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
You know, people feeling like they have no choice, like
there's no other way out of this, or a lot.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Of times because they don't want to seem like quitters.
I mean you look at the prisoner who went back
in because they were, you know, yelling at him and
belittling him, saying you're basically you did a bad thing
you're trying to leave. Obviously, this experiment was really interesting
and did show some pretty unique things, but overall it
did have a few flaws. Mainly, the sample size is
way too small. I mean, you really can't run a
(16:46):
legitimate experiment with only twenty five participants in half of
them leaving and new people coming in.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
It's not there's yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I don't think this experiment worked out so well.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
And also if Simbardo was going to make it experiment
like this and he wanted to participate and you know,
be the prison superintendent, he should have had another psychologist
stay on the outside and look in and make sure
that everything is still running smoothly, because you can't be
the psychologist running the experiment as well as a participant
in the experience.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It went from like a clear experiment first school and
for research purposes to like pretend times make again, it's
so weird. Obviously, he got a lot of hate from
people that were reading about this, Like, dude, seriously.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
People made the.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Argument that it was extremely unethical for Zimmato to take
in college students, even if they were participants, have them
go through such trauma just to try and you know,
get some information. It was because of cases like this
that they actually passed several laws at you know, make
clear lines of what you can and cannot do in experiments.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
But yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I had no idea that there are all these like
whack ass psych experiments, and I was thinking, if you
guys like this video, give it a thumbs up. Janelle
can join me in a series about these bizarre A
lot of them.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
People have done some weird things, but that's it for
us today.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Guys, be sure to let me know what your thoughts
are on the Stanford prison experiment below. Did you think
it was worth the information we got out of it,
or should have never been done in the first place.
Definitely let us know your thoughts and we will see
you next time.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Bye.
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