<p>Zimbardo, Haney, Banks, Jaffe, “The Psychology of Imprisonment: Privation, Power, and Pathology”</p><p>Every prison that men build is built with bricks of shame, and bound with bars lest Christ should see how men their brothers maim. (Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol)</p><p>The quiet of a summer Sunday morning in Palo Alto, California was shattered by a screeching squad car siren as police swept through the city picking up college students in a surprise mass arrest. Each suspect was charged with a felony, warned of his constitutional rights, spread-eagled against the car, searched, handcuffed and carted off in the back seat of the squad car to the police station for booking. In some cases, curious neighbors who witnessed these arrests expressed sympathy and concern to the families of these unfortunate young men. Said one alarmed mother of an l8-year-old college sophomore arrested for armed robbery, “I felt my son must have done something; the police have come to get my son!" …</p><p>These men were part of a very unusual kind of prison, an experimental or mock prison, created by social psychologists for the purpose of intensively studying the effects of imprisonment upon volunteer research subjects. When we planned our two-week long simulation of prison life, we were primarily concerned about understanding the process by which people adapt to the novel and alien environment in which those called "prisoners" lose their liberty, civil rights, independence and privacy, while those called "guards" gain social power by accepting the responsibility for controlling and managing the lives of their dependent charges. The decision to investigate this and related issues in the context of a mock prison rather than an actual one was based upon two premises. Prison systems are fortresses of secrecy, closed to impartial observation, and thereby immune to critical analysis from anyone not already part of the correctional authority. It is virtually impossible even for congressional investigating committees to have extended, truly open access to daily prison operations; for individual citizens the likelihood is considerably less. Secondly, in any real prison, it is impossible to separate out what each individual brings into the prison from what the prison brings out in each person. When observing, for instance, a given act of violence or brutality in a prison setting, it is impossible to determine whether it is attributable to some aspect of the situation or to preexisting personality characteristics of the special population of those who become prisoners and guards. By populating our mock prison entirely with a homogeneous group of individuals judged to be "normal-average" on a variety of personality dimensions, we were better able to assess the impact of acute situational forces upon the resulting behavior uncontaminated by chronic personality traits typically used to "explain" prison incidents. Our final sample of participants (10 prisoners and 11 guards) were selected from over 75 volunteers recruited through ads in the city and campus newspapers. The applicants were mostly college students from all over the United States and Canada who happened to be in the Stanford area during the summer and were attracted by the lure of earning $15 a day for participating in a study of prison life. All applicants were given an intensive clinical interview and completed an extensive background questionnaire, and </p><p>1 we selected only those who were judged to be emotionally stable, physically healthy, mature, law-abiding citizens. This sample of average, middle-class, Caucasian college males (there was one Oriental student) was then arbitrarily divided into two subgroups by a flip of the coin. Half were randomly assigned to role-play being guards, the others to be prisoners. Thus, there were no measurable differences between the guards and the prisoners at the start of this experiment. Although initially warned that as prisoners their privacy and other civil rights would be violated and they might be subjected to harassment, every subject was completely confident in his ability to endure whatever the prison had to offer for the full two week experimental period. Armed with this illusion of personal invulnerability and autonomy, each subject unhesitatingly agreed to give his "informed consent" to participate. It is important to note in passing that the primary motivation which got these subjects into this mock prison is similar to that which gets most other men into real prisons - the chance to make some easy money. What was most surprising about the outcome of this simulated prison experience was the ease with which sadistic behavior could be elicited from quite normal young men, and the contagious spread of emotional pathology among those carefully selected precisely for their emotional stability. Perhaps even more astonishing to us was the permeability of the boundaries between reality and delusion, between self-identity and situational role. What began as a simple academic exercise gradually became a force of monstrous proportion, generating unpredictable consequences in all those who came within the walls of this special prison. … ”Real" prisoners typically report feeling powerless, arbitrarily controlled, dependent, frustrated, hopeless, anonymous, dehumanized, and emasculated. It is not possible, pragmatically or ethically, to create such chronic states in volunteer subjects who realize that they are in an experiment for only a short time. Racism, physical brutality, indefinite confinement, and enforced homosexuality were not features of our mock prison. Instead, we created symbolic manifestations of those variables presumably fundamental to the experience of being imprisoned. Anonymity was promoted through a variety of operations to minimize each prisoner's uniqueness and prior identity. Their uniforms, ID numbers, and nylon stocking caps, as well as removal of their personal effects and being housed in barren cells, all made the subjects appear similar to each other, often indistinguishable to observers, and forced upon them the situational group identity of "prisoner." Having to wear smocks, which were like dresses, without undergarments caused the prisoners to be more restrained in their physical actions and to move in ways which were more feminine than masculine. Forcing the prisoners to obtain permission from the guards for routine and simple activities such as writing letters, smoking a cigarette, or even going to the toilet elicited from them a child-like dependency. Above all, "real" prisons are time machines for playing tricks with the human conception of time. In our windowless prison, the prisoners often did not even know whether it was day or night, or what hour it was. A few hours after falling asleep, they were rousted by shrill whistles for their "count." Over the course of the study, the duration of the counts was gradually and spontaneously increased by the guards from their initial perfunctory ten minutes to a seemingly interminable several hours. During these interactions, guards who were bored could find ways to amuse themselves, </p><p>2 recalcitrant prisoners could be ridiculed, arbitrary rules could be enacted, and any dissension among the prisoners could be openly exaggerated by the guards. The guards were also "deindividuated" by virtue of wearing identical khaki uniforms and silver reflector sunglasses which made eye contact with them impossible. Their symbols of power were billy clubs, whistles, handcuffs, and the keys to the cells and the "main gate." Although our guards received no formal training from us in how to be guards, for the most part they moved with apparent ease into their roles. Movies, TV, novels, and all of our mass media had already provided them with ample models of prison guards to emulate. Just as do "real" correctional officers subjected to these very same cultural influences, our mock guards had available to them behavioral templates of what it means to be a guard, upon which they could improvise their role performances. So too, our mock prisoners had already learned to some extent from mass media and selected life experiences what were appropriate prisoner reactions. Because we were as interested in the guards' behavior as in the prisoners', they were given considerable latitude for improvisation and for developing strategies and tactics of prisoner management. For the bulk of the time guards and prisoners interacted on the yard alone without the presence of any higher-ups. Our guards were told that they must maintain "law and order" in this prison, that they were responsible for handling any trouble which might break out, and they were cautioned as to the seriousness and potential dangers of the situation they were about to enter. Surprisingly, in most prison systems, "real" guards are not given much more psychological preparation or adequate training than this for what is one of the most complex, demanding, and dangerous jobs our society has to offer. They are expected to learn how to adjust to their new employment mostly from on-the-job experience, and from contacts with the "old bulls" during a survival-of-the-fittest orientation period. The symbo1ic interaction between guards and prisoners requires each to play his own role while also forcing the others to play their roles appropriately. You can not be a prisoner if no one will be your guard, and you can not be a prison guard if no one lakes you or your prison seriously. Therefore, over time a perverted symbiotic relationship developed. As the guards became more aggressive, prisoners became more passive; assertion by the guards led to dependency in the prisoners; self-aggrandizement was met with self-deprecation, authority with helplessness, and the counterpart of the guards' sense of mastery and control was the depression and helplessness witnessed in the prisoners. As these differences in behavior; mood and perception became more evident to all, the need for the now "righteously" powerful guards to rule the obviously inferior and powerless inmates became a sufficient reason to support almost any further indignity of man against man.</p><p>GUARD R: During the inspection, I went to cell 2 to mess up a bed which the prisoner had made and he grabbed me, screaming that he had just made it, and he wasn't going to let me mess it up; He grabbed my throat, and although he was laughing I was pretty scared. … I lashed out with my stick and hit him in the chin (although not very hard) and when I freed myself I became angry. I wanted to get back in the cell and have a go with him, since he attacked me when I was not ready.</p><p>3 GUARD M: I was surprised at myself. … I made them call each other names and clean the toilets out with their bare hands. I practically considered the prisoners cattle, and I kept thinking I have to watch out for them in case they try something.</p><p>GUARD A: I was tired of seeing the prisoners in their rags and smelling the strong odors of their bodies that filled the cells. I watched them tear at each other on orders given by us. They didn't see it as an experiment. It was real and they were fighting to keep their identity. But we were always there to show them who was boss. ...</p><p>Zimbardo, “Lucifer Effect”</p><p>... As each of the blindfolded prisoners is escorted down the flight of steps in front of Jordan Hall into our little jail, our guards order them to strip and remain standing naked with their arms outstretched against the wall and legs spread apart. They hold that uncomfortable position for a long time as the guards ignore them because they are busy with last-minute chores, like packing away the prisoners' belongings for safekeeping, fixing up their guards quarters, and arranging beds in the three cells. Before being given his uniform, each prisoner is sprayed with powder, alleged to be a delouser, to rid him of lice that might be brought in to contaminate our jail. Without any staff encouragement, some guards begin to make fun of the prisoners' genitals, remarking on their small penis size or laughing at their unevenly hanging testicles. Such a guy thing! Still blindfolded, each prisoner is then given his uniform, nothing fancy, just a smock, like a tan muslin dress, with numbers on front and back for identification. The numbers have been sewn on from sets we bought from a Boy Scout supply store. A woman's nylon stocking serves as a cap covering the long hair of many of these prisoners. It is a substitute for the head shaving that is part of the newcomer ritual in the military and some prisons. Covering the head is also a method of erasing one of the markers of individuality and promoting greater anonymity among the prisoner caste. Next, each prisoner dons a pair of rubber clogs, and a locked chain is attached to one ankle - a constant reminder of imprisonment. Even when he is asleep, the prisoner will be reminded of his status when the chain hits his foot as he turns in his sleep. The prisoners are allowed no underwear, so when they bend over their behinds show. When the prisoners have been fully outfitted, the guards remove the blind-folds so that the prisoners can reflect on their new look in the full-length mirror propped against the wall. A Polaroid photo documents each prisoner's identity on an official booking form, where an ID number replaces "Name" on the form. The humiliation of being a prisoner has begun, much as it does in many institutions from military boot camps to prisons, hospitals, and low-level jobs. "Don't move your head; don't move your mouth; don't move your hands: don't move your feet; and don't move anything. Now shut up, and stay where you are," barks guard Arnett in his first show of authority.' He and the other day shift guards, J. Landry and Markus, are already starting to wield their police billy clubs in menacing position as they undress and outfit the prisoners. The first four prisoners are lined up and told some of the basic rules, which the guards and the warden had formulated during the guard orientation on the previous day. "I don't like the warden to correct my work," says Arnett,</p><p>4 "so I will make it desirable for you not to have to correct me. Listen carefully to these rules. You must address prisoners by number and by number only. Address guards as 'Mr. Correctional Officer.' ... Some of you prisoners already know the rules, but others of you have shown you don't know how to act, so you need to learn them." Each rule is read slowly, seriously, and authoritatively. The prisoners are slouching, shuffling, gazing around this strange new world. "Stand up straight, number 7258. Hands at your sides, prisoners." Arnett begins to quiz the prisoners on the rules. He is demanding and critical, working hard to set a serious tone in official military manner. His style seems to say that he is just doing his job, nothing personal intended. But the prisoners are having none of that; they are giggling, laughing, not taking him seriously. They are hardly into playing their role as prisoners - yet. "No laughing!" orders Guard J. Landry. Stocky, with long, shaggy blond hair, Landry is about six inches shorter than Arnett, who is a tall, slim fellow with aquiline features, dark brown curly hair, and tightly pursed lips. Suddenly, Warden David Jaffe enters the jail. "Stand at attention against this wall for the full rule reading," says Arnett. Jaffe, who is actually one of my undergraduate Stanford students, is a little guy, maybe five feet five, but he seems to be taller than usual, standing very erect, shoulders back, head held high. He is already into his role as the warden. ... Although we cannot see into the cells, we can listen. The cells are bugged with audio devices that enable us to eavesdrop on some of the prisoners' talk. The prisoners are not aware of the hidden microphones concealed behind the indirect lighting panels. This information will be used to let us know what they are thinking and feeling when in private, and what kinds of things they share with one another. It may also be useful in identifying prisoners who need special attention because they are becoming overly stressed. I am amazed at Warden Jaffe's pontificating and surprised at seeing him all dressed up for the first time in a sports jacket and tie. His clothing is rare for students in these hippie days. Nervously, he twirls his big Sonny Bono mustache, as he gets into his new role. I have told Jaffe that this is the time for him to introduce himself to this new group of prisoners as their warden. ... "As you probably already know, I am your warden. All of you have shown that you are unable to function outside in the real world for one reason or all other. Somehow, you lack the sense of responsibility of good citizens of this great country. We in this prison, your correctional staff, are going to help you to learn what your responsibility as citizens of this country is. You heard the rules. Some time in the very near future there will be a copy of the rules posted in each cell. We expect you to know them and be able to recite them by number. If you follow all of these rules, keep your hands clean, repent for your misdeeds, and show a proper attitude of penitence, then you and I will get along just fine. Hopefully I won’t have to be seeing you too often." It was an amazing improvisation, followed by an order from Guard Markus talking up for the first time: "Now you thank the warden for his fine speech to you." In unison, the nine prisoners shout their thanks to the warden but without much sincerity. ... With all the guards giving some input, Jaffe worked out these rules in an intense session yesterday at the end of the guard orientation. Guard Arnett talks it over with Warden Jaffe, and they decide that Arnett will read the full set of the rules aloud - his </p><p>5 first step in dominating the day shift. He begins slowly and with precise articulation. The seventeen rules are: 1. Prisoners must remain silent during rest periods, after lights out, during meals, and whenever they are outside the prison yard. 2. Prisoners must eat at mealtimes and only at mealtimes. 3. Prisoners must participate in all prison activities. 4. Prisoners must keep their cell clean at all times. Beds must be made and personal effects must be neat and orderly. Floors must be spotless. 5. Prisoners must not move, tamper with, deface, or damage walls, ceilings, windows, doors, or any prison property. 6. Prisoners must never operate cell lighting. 7. Prisoners must address each other by number only. 8. Prisoners must always address the guards as "Mr. Correctional Officer" and the Warden as "Mr. Chief Correctional Officer." 9. Prisoners must never refer to their condition as an "experiment" or "simulation." They are imprisoned until paroled. "We are halfway there, I hope you are paying close attention, because you will commit each and everyone of these rules to memory, and we will test at random intervals," the guard forewarns his new charges. 10. Prisoners will be allowed 5 minutes in the lavatory. No prisoner will be allowed to return to the lavatory within 1 hour after a scheduled lavatory period, Lavatory visitations are controlled by the guards. 11. Smoking is a privilege. Smoking will be allowed after meals or at the discretion of the guard. Prisoners must never smoke in the cells. Abuse of the smoking privilege will result in permanent revocation of the smoking privilege. 12. Mail is a privilege. All mail flowing in and out of the prison will be inspected and censored. 13. Visitors are a privilege. Prisoners who are allowed a visitor must meet him or her at the door to the yard. The visit will be supervised by a guard, and the guard may terminate the visit at his discretion. 14. All prisoners in each cell will stand whenever the warden, the prison superintendent, or any other visitors arrive on the premises. Prisoners will wait on orders to be seated or to resume activities. 15. Prisoners must obey all orders issued by guards at all times. A guard's order supersedes any written order. A warden's order supersedes both the guard's orders and the written rules. Orders of the superintendent of the prison are supreme. 16. Prisoners must report all rule violations to the guards. "Last, but the most important, rule for you to remember at all times is number seventeen," adds Guard Arnett in an ominous warning: 17. Failure to obey any of the above rules may result in punishment. …</p><p>The First Count in This Strange Place According to the plan developed by the guards at their orientation meeting the day before, Guard J. Landry continues the process of establishing the guards' authority by giving instructions for the count. "Okay, to familiarize yourselves with your numbers, we are going to have you count them off from left to right, and fast." The prisoners shout out </p><p>6 their numbers, which are arbitrary four-or-three-digit numbers on the front of their smocks. "That was pretty good, but I'd like to see them at attention." The prisoners reluctantly stand erect at attention. "You were too slow in standing tall. Give me ten push-ups.” (Push-ups soon become a staple in the guards' control and punishment tactics.) "Was that a smile?" Jaffe asks. "I can see that smile from down here. This is not funny, this is serious business that you have gotten yourselves into." ... Initially the purpose of counts, as in all prisons, is an administrative necessity to ensure that all prisoners are present and accounted for, that none has escaped or is still in his cell sick or needing attention. In this case, the secondary purpose of the counts is for prisoners to familiarize themselves with their new numbered identity. We want them to begin thinking of themselves, and the others, as prisoners with numbers, not people with names. What is fascinating is how the nature of the counts is transformed over time from routine memorizing and reciting of IDs to an open forum for guards to display their total authority over the prisoners. ... The prisoners are finally sent into their cells to memorize the rules and get acquainted with their new cellmates. The cells, designed to emphasize the ambient anonymity of prison living conditions, are actually reconstructed small offices, ten by twelve feet in size. For the office furniture we substituted three cots, pushed together side by side. The cells are totally barren of any other furniture, except for Cell 3, which has a sink and faucet, which we have turned off but which the guards can turn back on at will to reward designated good prisoners put into that special cell. The office doors were replaced with specially made black doors fitted with a row of iron bars down a central window, with each of the three cell numbers prominently displayed on the door. … Another sign forbade smoking without permission, and a third indicated, ominously, the location of solitary confinement, “The Hole.” Solitary consisted of a small closet in the wall opposite the cells. It had been used for storage, and its file boxes took up all but about a square yard of open space. That is where unruly prisoners would spend time as punishment for various offenses. In this small space, prisoners would stand, squat, or sit on the floor in darkness for the length of time ordered by a guard. They would be able to hear the goings-on outside on the Yard and hear all too well anyone banging on the doors of the Hole. … All in all our prison was a much more humane facility than most POW camps - and certainly more commodious, clean, and orderly than the hard site at Abu Ghraib Prison (which, by the way, Saddam Hussein made notorious for torture and murder long before American soldiers did more recently). Yet despite its relative “comfort,” this Stanford prison would become the scene of abuses that eerily foreshadowed the abuses of Abu Ghraib by Army Reserve Military Police years later.</p><p>Role Adjustments It takes a while for the guards to get into their roles. From the Guard Shift Reports made at the end of each of the three different shifts, we learn that Guard Vandy feels uneasy, not sure what it takes to be a good guard, wishes he had been given some training, but thinks it is a mistake to be too nice to the prisoners. Guard Geoff Landry, kid brother of J. Landry, reports feeling guilty during the humiliating degradation rituals in which the prisoners had to stand naked for a long time in uncomfortable positions. He is sorry that he did not try to stop some things of which he did not approve. Instead of raising an </p><p>7 objection, he just left the Yard as often as possible rather than continue to experience these unpleasant interactions. Guard Arnett, a graduate student in sociology, who is a few years older than the others, doubts that the prisoner induction is having its desired effect. He thinks that the security on his shift is bad and the other guards are being too polite. Even after this first day's brief encounters. Arnett is able to single out those prisoners who are troublemakers and those who are "acceptable." He also points out something that we missed in our observations but Officer Joe had remarked about during the arrest of Tom Thompson- a concern about Prisoner 2093. Arnett doesn't like the fact that Tom-2093 is "too good" in his “rigid adherence to all orders and regulations." (Indeed. 2093 will later be disparagingly nicknamed “Sarge” by the other prisoners precisely because of his militaristic style of obediently following orders. He has brought some strong values into our situation that may come into conflict with those of the guards, something to notice as we go along. Recall that it was something also noticed about Tom by the arresting police officer.) In contrast, Prisoner 819 considers the whole situation quite "amusing.” He found the first counts rather enjoyable, “just a joke" and he felt that some of the guards did as well. Prisoner 1037 had watched as all the others were processed in the same humiliating fashion as he was. However, he refused to take any of it seriously. …</p><p>The Night Shift Take Over The night shift guards arrive before their starting time at 6 P.M. to don their new uniforms. ... [T]he day shift guards greet their new buddies, tell them that everything is under control and everything is in place, but add that some prisoners are not yet fully with the program. They deserve watching, and pressure should be applied to get them into line. "We're gonna do that just fine, you'll see a straight line when you come back tomorrow," boasts one of the newcomer guards. The first meal is finally served at seven o'clock. It's a simple one, offered cafeteria style on a table set out in the Yard. 5 There is room for only six inmates at the table, so when they finish the remaining three come to eat what is left. Right off, Prisoner 8612 tries to talk the others into going on a sit-down strike to protest These "unacceptable" prison conditions, but they are all too hungry and tired to go along right now. 8612 is wise guy Doug Karlson, the anarchist who gave the arresting cops some lip. Back in their cells, the prisoners are ordered to remain silent, but 819 and 8612 disobey, talk loudly and laugh, and get away with it - for now. Prisoner 5704, the tallest of the lot, has been silent until now, but his tobacco addiction has gotten to him, and he demands that his cigarettes be returned to him. He's told that he has to earn the right to smoke by being a good prisoner. 5704 challenges this principle, saying it is breaking the rules, but to no avail. According to the rules of the experiment, any participant could leave any time, but this seems to have been forgotten by the disgruntled prisoners. They could have used the threat to quit as a tactic to improve their conditions or reduce the mindless hassling they endured, but they did not as they slowly slipped more deeply into their roles. ...</p><p>The New Meaning of Counts … Though the first count started out innocently enough, our nightly counts and their early-morning counterparts would eventually escalate into tormenting experiences. </p><p>8 "Okay, boys, now we are going to have a little count! Going to be a lot of fun." Guard Hellmann tells them with a big grin. Guard Geoff Landry quickly adds, "The better you do it, the shorter it'll be." As the weary prisoners file out into the yard, they are silent and sullen, not looking at one another. It has already been a long day, and who knows what's in store before they can finally get a good night's sleep. Geoff Landry takes command: "Turn around, hands against the wall. No talking! You want this to last all night? We're going to do this until you get it right. Start by counting off in ones." Hellmann adds his two cents: "I want you to do it fast, and I want you to do it loud." The prisoners obey. "I didn't hear it very well, we'll have to do it again. Guys, that was awful slow, so once again." "That's right." Landry chimes in, "we'll have to do it again." As soon as a few numbers are called out, Hellmann yells, "Stop! Is that loud? Maybe you didn't hear me right, I said loud, and I said clear." "Let's see if they can count backwards. Now try it from the other end," Landry says playfully. "Hey! I don't want anybody laughing!" Hellmann says gruffly. "We'll be here all night until we get it right." Some of the prisoners are becoming aware that a struggle for dominance is going on between these two guards, Hellmann and the youngest Landry. Prisoner 819, who has not been taking any of this seriously, begins to 'laugh aloud as Landry and Hellmann one- up each other at the prisoners' expense. "Hey, did I say that you could laugh, 819? Maybe you didn't hear me right." Hellmann is getting angry for the first time. He gets right up in the prisoner's face, leans on him, and pushes him back with his billy club. Now Landry pushes his fellow guard aside and commands 819 to do twenty push-ups, which he does without comment. Hellmann moves back to center stage: "This time. sing it." As the prisoners start to count off again, he interrupts. "Didn't I say that you had to sing? Maybe you gentlemen have those stocking caps too tight around your head and you can't hear me too well." He is becoming more creative in control techniques and dialogue. He turns on Prisoner 1037 for singing his number off key and demands twenty jumping jacks. After he finishes, Hellmann adds, "Would you do ten more for me? And don't make that thing rattle so much this time." Because there is no way to do jumping jacks without the ankle chain making noise the commands are becoming arbitrary, but the guards are beginning to take pleasure in giving commands and forcing the prisoners to execute them. Even though it is funny to have the prisoners singing numbers, the two guards alternate in saying "There's nothing funny about it" and complaining "Oh, that's terrible, really bad." "Now once more," Hellmann tells them. "I'd like you to sing, I want it to sound sweet." Prisoner after prisoner is ordered to do more push-ups for being too slow or too sour. ... Now Hellmann insists that they can't look at their numbers when they count since by now they should have memorized them. If anyone of the prisoners gets his number wrong, the punishment is a dozen push-ups for everyone. Still competing with Landry for dominance in the guards' pecking order, Hellmann becomes ever more arbitrary: "I don't like the way you count when you're going down. I want you to count when you're going up. Do ten more push-ups for me, will you, 5486." The prisoners are clearly complying with orders more and more quickly. But that just reinforces the guards' desire to demand more of them. Hellmann: "Well, that's just great. Why don't you sing it this time? You men don't sing very well, it just doesn't sound too sweet to me." Landry: "I don't think they're keeping very good time. Make it nice and sweet, make it a pleasure to the ear." </p><p>9 819 and 5486 continue to mock the process but, oddly, comply with the guards' demands to perform many jumping jacks as their punishment. The new guard, Burdan, gets into the act even more quickly than did the other guards, but he has had on-the-job training watching his two role models strut their stuff. "Oh, that was pretty! Now, that's the way I want you to do it. 3401, come out here and do a solo, tell us what your number is!" Burdan goes beyond what his fellow guards have been doing by physically pulling prisoners out of line to sing their solos in front of the others. ... Hellmann has come up with a creative new plan to teach Jerry-5486 his number in an unforgettable way: "First do five push-ups, then four jumping jacks, then eight push- ups and six jumping jacks, just so you will remember exactly what that number is, 5486." He is becoming more cleverly inventive in designing punishments, the first signs of creative evil. ...</p><p>The First Sign of Rebellion Brewing At the end of his shift, as he is leaving the Yard, Hellmann yells out to the prisoners, “All right, gentlemen, did you enjoy our counts?" "No sir!" "Who said that?" Prisoner 8612 owns up to that remark, saying he was raised not to tell a lie. All three guards rush into Cell 2 and grab 8612, who is giving the clenched-fist salute of dissident radicals as he shouts, “ All power to the people!” He is dumped into the Hole with the distinction of being its first occupant. The guards show that they are united about one principle: they will not tolerate any dissent. Landry now follows up on Hellmann's previous question to the prisoners. “All right, did you enjoy your count?" "Yes sir." "Yes sir, what?" "Yes sir, Mr. Correctional Officer." "That's more like it." Since no one else is willing to openly challenge their authority, the three caballeros walk down the hall in formation, as though in a military parade. ... Prisoner 5486 later reported feeling depressed when 8612 was put into the Hole. He also felt guilty for not having done anything to intervene. But he rationalized his behavior in not wanting to sacrifice his comfort or get thrown into solitary as well by reminding himself that "it's only an experiment."... Before lights out at 10 P.M. sharp, prisoners are allowed their last toilet privilege of the night. ... At first, Prisoner Tom-2093 says he needs more than the brief time allocated because he can't urinate since he is so tense. The guards refuse, but the other prisoners unify in their insistence that he be allowed sufficient time. "It was a matter of establishing that there were certain things that we wanted," 5486 later defiantly reported. Small events like this one are what can combine to give a new collective identity to prisoners as something more than a collection of individuals trying to survive on their own. Rebel Doug-8612 feels that the guards are obviously role-playing, that their behavior is just a joke, but that they are "going overboard." He will continue his efforts to organize the other prisoners so they will have more power. In contrast, our fair-haired- boy prisoner, Hubbie-7258, reports that as the day goes on, I wish I was a guard." Not surprisingly, none of the guards wishes to be a prisoner. Another rebellious prisoner, 819, showed his stuff in his letter to his family, asking them to come to Visiting Night. He signed it, “All power to the oppressed brothers, victory is inevitable. No kidding, I am as happy here as a prisoner can be!" While playing cards in their quarters, the night shift guards and the warden decide on a plan for the first count of the morning shift that will distress the prisoners. Shortly after </p><p>10 the start of their shift, the guards will stand close to the cell doors and awaken their charges with loud, shrieking whistles. This will also quickly get the new guard shift energized into their roles and disturb the sleep of the prisoners at the same time. Landry, Burdan, and Hellmann all like that plan and as they continue playing discuss how they can be better guards the following night. Hellmann thinks it is all "fun and games." He has decided to act like "hot shit" from now on, "to play a more domineering role." as in a fraternity hazing or in movies about prisons, like Cool Hand Luke. Burdan is in a critical position as swingman, as the guard in the middle, on this night shift. Geoff Landry started out strong but, as the night wore on, deferred to Hellmann's creative inventions and finally gave in to his powerful style. Later, Landry will move into the role of a "good guard"-friendly toward the inmates and doing nothing to degrade them. If Burdan sides with Landry, then together they might dim Hellmann's bright lights. But if Burdan sides with the tough guys, Landry will be odd man out and the shift will move in a sinister direction. In his retrospective diary, Burdan writes that he felt anxious when he was suddenly called at 6 P.M. that night to be on duty ASAP. Putting on a military-style uniform made him feel silly, given the overflowing black hair on his face and head, a contrast that he worried might make prisoners laugh at him. He consciously decided not to look them in the eyes; nor smile, nor treat the scenario as a game. Compared with Hellmann and Landry, who look self-assured in the new roles, he is not. He thinks of them as "the regulars" even though they were at their jobs only a few hours before his arrival. What he enjoys most about his costume is carrying the big billy club, which conveys a sense of power and security as he wields it, rattling it against the bars of the cell doors, banging it on the Hole door, or just pounding into his hand, which becomes his routine gesture. The rap session at the end of his shift with his new buddies has made him more like his old self, less like a power-drunk guard. He does, however, give Landry a pep talk about the necessity for all of them to work as a team in order to keep the prisoners in line and not to tolerate any rebelliousness. Guard Ceros, at first uncomfortable in his uniform, now likes the effect of wearing silver reflecting glasses. They make him feel "safely authoritative." But the loud whistles echoing through the dark chamber scare him a bit. He feels he is too soft to be a good guard, so he tries to turn his urge to laugh into a "sadistic smile." He goes out of his way to compliment the warden on his constant suggestions for sadistic ways to enhance the count. Varnish later reported that he knew it would be tough for him to be a strong guard, therefore he looked to the others for clues about how to behave in this unusual setting, as most of us do when we find ourselves in an alien situation. He felt that the main task of the guards was to help create an environment in which the prisoners would lose their old identities and take on new ones. ...</p><p>Zimbardo, Haney, Banks, Jaffe, “The Psychology of Imprisonment: Privation, Power, and Pathology”</p><p>... Because the first day passed without incident, we were surprised and totally unprepared for the rebellion which broke out on the morning of the second day. The prisoners removed their stocking caps, ripped off their numbers, and barricaded themselves inside the cells by putting their beds against the door. And now the problem </p><p>11 was what were we going to do about this rebellion? The guards were very much upset because the prisoners also began to taunt and curse them to their faces. When the morning shift of guards came on, they were upset at the night shift who, they felt, must have been too permissive and too lenient or else this rebellion would not have taken place. The guards had to handle the rebellion themselves, and what they did was startling to behold. At first they insisted that reinforcements be called in. The two guards who were waiting on stand-by call at home came in and the night shift of guards voluntarily remained on duty (without extra pay) to bolster the morning shift. The guards met and decided to treat force with force. They got a fire extinguisher which shot a stream of skin- chilling carbon dioxide and forced the prisoners away from the doors, they broke into each cell, stripped the prisoners naked, took the beds out, forced some of the prisoners who were then the ringleaders into solitary confinement, and generally began to harass and intimidate the prisoners. After crushing the riot, the guards then decided to head off further ones by creating a privileged cell for those who were "good prisoners," then without explanation switching some of the troublemakers into it and some of the good ones out into the other cells. The prisoner ringleaders could not trust these new cell mates because they had not joined in the riot and might even be "snitches." The prisoners never again acted in unity against the system. One of the leaders of the prisoner revolt later confided: “If we had gotten together then, I think we could have taken over the place. But when I saw the revolt wasn't working, I decided to toe the line. Everyone settled into the same pattern. From then on, we were really controlled by the guards.” It was after this episode that the guards really began to demonstrate their inventiveness in the application of arbitrary power. They made the prisoners obey petty, meaningless and often inconsistent rules, forced them to engage in tedious, useless work such as moving cartons back and forth between closets and picking thorns out of their blankets for hours on end. Not only did the prisoners have to sing songs or laugh or refrain from smiling on command, but they were also encouraged to curse and vilify each other publicly during some of the counts. They sounded off their numbers endlessly, and were repeatedly made to do pushups, on occasion with a guard stepping on them or a prisoner sitting on them. Slowly the prisoners became resigned to their fate and even behaved in ways which actually helped to justify their dehumanizing treatment at the hands of the guards. Analysis of the tape-recorded private conversations between prisoners and of remarks made by them to interviewers revealed that eighty-five percent of the evaluative statements by prisoners about their fellow prisoners, were uncomplimentary and deprecating. … This result should be taken in the context of an even more surprising one. What do you imagine the prisoners talked about when they were alone in their cells with each other, given a temporary respite from the continual harassment and surveillance by the guards? Girlfriends, career plans, hobbies, politics, etc., were what we assumed would be the major topics of conversation. Not so. Their concerns were almost exclusively riveted to prison topics. Their monitored conversations revealed that only ten percent of the time was devoted to "outside" topics. During the remaining ninety percent of the time they discussed such topics as escape plans, the awful food, grievances, or ingratiation tactics </p><p>12 to use with specific guards. The prisoners' obsession with immediate survival concerns made talk about their past and future an idle luxury. But this exclusive focus on prison topics had a doubly negative effect upon the prisoners' adjustment. First, by voluntarily allowing prison topics to occupy their thoughts even when they did not have to continue playing their roles, the prisoners themselves extended the oppressiveness and reality of the experience. Secondly, since the prisoners were all strangers to each other to begin with, they could only know what the others were really like by sharing past experiences and future expectations and observing how they behaved. But what each prisoner observed was his fellow prisoners allowing the guards to humiliate them, acting like compliant sheep, carrying out mindless orders with total obedience and even being abused by their fellow prisoners (at a guard's command). After days of living confined together in this tight environment, many of the prisoners did not even know the names of most of the others, where they came from, nor had even the most basic information about what they were like when they were not "prisoners." Under such circumstances, how could a prisoner have respect for his fellows or any self-respect for what he obviously was becoming in the eyes of all those evaluating him?</p><p>“Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.” (Hazlitt, “On Pedantry”)</p><p>... It was remarkable how readily we all slipped into our roles, temporarily gave up our identities, and allowed these assigned roles and the social forces in the situation to guide, shape and eventually to control our freedom of thought and action. Can it really be, you wonder, that intelligent, educated volunteers could have lost sight of the reality at they were merely acting a part in an elaborate game (of cops and robbers) which would eventually end? There are many available sources of evidence indicating not only that they did, but also, so did we and so did other apparently sensible responsible adults. A few examples will convey the extent to which a role-playing simulation experience can, under certain circumstances, become a totally involving life situation. Prisoner 819, who had gone into a rage followed by an uncontrollable crying fit was about to be prematurely released from the prison when a guard lined up the prisoners and had them chant in unison "819 is a bad prisoner. Because of what 819 did to prison property we all must suffer. 819 is a bad prisoner," over and over again. When we realized 819 might be overhearing this, we rushed into the room where 819 was supposed to be resting, only to find him in tears, prepared to go back into that prison because he could not leave as long as the others thought he was a "bad prisoner." Sick as he felt, he had to prove to them he was not a "bad" prisoner. He had to be persuaded that he was not a prisoner at all, that the others were also just students, that this was just an experiment and not a prison and the prison staff were only research psychologists. Consider our overreaction to the rumor of a mass escape plot which one of the guards allegedly overheard. It went as follows: Prisoner 8612, previously released for emotional disturbance, was only faking. He was going to round up a bunch of his friends and they would storm the prison right after visiting hours. Instead of collecting data on the pattern of rumor transmission, we made plans to maintain the security of our institution. After putting a confederate informer into the cell 8612 had occupied to get </p><p>13 specific information about the escape plans, the Superintendent went back to the Palo Alto Police Department to request transfer of our prisoners to the old city jail. This impassioned plea was turned down at the last minute when the problem of insurance and city liability for our prisoners was raised by a city official. Angered at this lack of institutional cooperation, the staff formulated another plan. Our jail was dismantled, the prisoners, chained and blindfolded, were carted off to a remote storage room. When the conspirators arrived, they would be told the study was over, their friends had been sent home, there was nothing left to liberate. After they left, we would redouble the security features of our prison, making any future escape attempts futile. We even planned to lure ex-prisoner 8612 back on some pretext and then imprison him because he had been released on false pretenses! The rumor turned out to be just that - a full day had passed in which we collected little or no data, worked incredibly hard to tear down and then rebuild our prison. Our reaction however, was as much one of relief and joy as of exhaustion and frustration. Perhaps the most telling account of the insidious development of this new reality, of the gradual Kafkaesque metamorphosis of good into evil, is evident in excerpts from the diary of one of the guards. Guard A:</p><p>Prior to start of experiment: As I am a pacifist and nonaggressive individual, I cannot see a time when I might guard and/or maltreat other living things.</p><p>After orientation meeting: Buying uniforms at the end of the meeting confirms the game- like atmosphere of this thing. I doubt whether many of us share the expectations of "seriousness" that the experimenters seem to have.</p><p>First day: Feel sure that the prisoners will make fun of my appearance and evolve my first basic strategy - mainly not to smile at anything they say or do which would be admitting it's all only a game. … At cell 3 I stop and setting my voice hard and low say to #5486, "what are you smiling at?" "Nothing, Mr. Correctional Officer," "Well see that you don't." (As I walk off I feel stupid.)</p><p>Second day: 5704 asked for a cigarette and I ignored him - because I am a non-smoker and could not empathize. … Meanwhile since I was feeling empathetic towards 1037, I determined not to talk with him. … after we had Count and lights out [Guard D] and I held a loud conversation about going home to our girlfriends and what we were going to do to them.</p><p>Third day: (Preparing for the first Visitors' Night.) After warning the prisoners not to make any complaints unless they wanted the visit terminated fast, we finally brought in the first parents. I made sure I was one of the guards on the yard, because this was my first chance for the type of manipulative power that I really like - being a very noticed figure with almost complete control over what is said or not. While the parents and prisoners sat in chairs, I sat on the end of the table dangling my feet and contradicting anything I felt like. This was the first part of the experiment I was really enjoying. …</p><p>14 Fourth day: The psychologist rebukes me for handcuffing and blindfolding a prisoner before leaving the [counseling] office, and I resentfully reply that it is both necessary security and my business anyway.</p><p>Fifth day: I harass "Sarge" who continues to stubbornly over-respond to all commands. I have singled him out for special abuse both because he begs for it and because I simply don't like him. The real trouble starts at dinner. The new prisoner (416) refuses to eat his sausage. ... we throw him into the Hole ordering him to hold sausages in each hand. We have a crisis of authority, this rebellious conduct potentially undermines the complete control we have over the others. We decide to play upon prisoner solidarity and tell the new one that all the others will be deprived of visitors if he does not eat his dinner. … I walk by and slam my stick into the Hole door. . . I am very angry at this prisoner for causing discomfort and trouble for the others. I decided to force feed him, but he wouldn't eat. I let the food slide down his face. I didn't believe it was me doing it. I hated myse1f for making him eat but I hated him more for not eating.</p><p>Sixth day: The experiment is over… I feel elated but am shocked to find some other guards disappointed somewhat because of the loss of money and some because they are enjoying themselves.</p><p>We were no longer dealing with an intellectual exercise in which an hypothesis was being evaluated in the dispassionate manner dictated by the canons of the scientific method. We were caught up in the passion of the present, the suffering, the need to control people, not variables, the escalation of power and all of the unexpected things which were erupting around and within us. We had to end this experiment! So our planned two-week simulation was aborted after only six (was it only six?) days and nights. But was it worth all the suffering just to prove what everyone knows, that some people are sadistic, others weak and prisons are not a bed of roses? If that is all we demonstrated in this research then it was certainly not worth the anguish. We believe there are many significant implications to be derived from this experience, only a few of which can be suggested here. The potential social value of this study derives precisely from the fact that normal, healthy, educated young men could be so radically transformed under the institutional pressures of a "prison environment." The argument runs, if this could happen in so short a time, without the excesses that are possible in real prisons, in the "cream-of-the-crop" of American youth, then one can only shudder at imagining what society is doing both to the actual guards and prisoners who are at this very moment participating in that unnatural "social experiment." The pathology observed in this study cannot be reasonably attributed to preexisting personality differences of the subjects, that option being eliminated by our selection procedures, and random assignment. Rather, the subjects' abnormal social and personal reactions are best seen as a product of their transaction with an environment whose values and contingencies supported the production of behavior which would be pathological in other settings, but were "appropriate" in this prison. Had we observed comparable reactions in a real prison, the psychiatrist undoubtedly would have been able </p><p>15 to attribute any prisoner's behavior to character defects or personality maladjustment, while critics of the prison system would have been as quick to label the guards as "psychopathic." This tendency to locate the source of behavior disorders inside a particular person or group underestimates the power of situational forces to control behavior while overestimating the efficacy of personality or trait dispositions. A substantial body of research indicates that there is little tran-situational generality of personality traits and further, that personality consistency is more in the minds of observers than in the behavior of those observed. Unfortunately, the insistence by traditional psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and personality psychologists that socially deviant or pathological behavior is the product of weak egos, latent traits and a host of other assumed inner dispositions has done a great disservice to mankind. Those in positions of power have been given an arsenal of labels to apply to those without power, the poor, the dissidents, the nonconformists, the revolutionaries, etc., thereby sustaining the status quo by making people the problem and not the economic/social/political inequities in their life situation. Moreover, this dispositional analysis becomes a weapon in the hands of reactionary legislators and law enforcers since defective problem people are then "treated" by one of their available institutions while problem situations are ignored or dismissed as irrelevant or too complex to change easily. …</p><p>Zimbardo, “Lucifer Effect”</p><p>WHY SITUATIONS MATTER Within certain powerful social settings, human nature can be transformed in ways as dramatic as the chemical transformation in Robert Louis Stevenson's captivating fable of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The enduring interest in the SPE over many decades comes, I think, from the experiment's startling revelation of "transformation of character" - of good people suddenly becoming perpetrators of evil as guards or pathologically passive victims as prisoners in response to situational forces acting on them. Good people can be induced, seduced, and initiated into behaving in evil ways. They can also be led to act in irrational, stupid, self-destructive, antisocial, and mindless ways when they are immersed in "total situations" that impact human nature in ways that challenge our sense of the stability and consistency of individual personality, of character, and of morality. We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil. On one side are Us, Our Kin, and Our Kind; on the other side of that line we cast Them. Their Different Kin, and Other Kind. Paradoxically, by creating this myth of our invulnerability to situational forces, we set ourselves up for a fall by not being sufficiently vigilant to situational forces. The SPE, along with much other social science research … reveals a message we do not want to accept: that most of us can undergo significant character transformations </p><p>16 when we are caught up in the crucible of social forces. What we imagine we would do when we are outside that crucible may bear little resemblance to who we become and what we are capable of doing once we are inside its network. The SPE is a clarion call to abandon simplistic notions of the Good Self dominating Bad Situations. We are best able to avoid, prevent, challenge, and change such negative situational forces only by recognizing their potential power to "infect us," as it has others who were similarly situated. It is well for us to internalize the significance of the recognition by the ancient Roman comedy writer Terence that "Nothing by humans is alien to me." This lesson should have been taught repeatedly by the behavioral transformation of Nazi concentration camp guards, and of those in destructive cults, such as Jim Jones's Peoples Temple, and more recently by the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult. The genocide and atrocities committed in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Burundi, and recently in Sudan's Darfur region also provide strong evidence of people surrendering their humanity and compassion to social power and abstract ideologies of conquest and national security. Any deed that any human being has ever committed, however horrible, is possible for any of us - under the right or wrong situational circumstances. That knowledge does not excuse evil: rather it democratizes it, sharing its blame among ordinary actors rather than declaring it the province only of deviants and despots - of Them but not Us. The primary simple lesson the Stanford Prison Experiment teaches is that situations matter. Social situations can have more profound effects on the behavior and mental functioning of individuals, groups, and national leaders than we might believe possible. Some situations can exert such powerful influence over us that we can be led to behave in ways we would not, could not, predict was possible in advance. Situational power is most salient in novel settings, those in which people cannot call on previous guidelines for their new behavioral options. In such situations the usual reward structures are different and expectations are violated. Under such circumstances, personality variables have little predictive utility because they depend on estimations of imagined future actions based on characteristic past reactions in familiar situations - but rarely in the kind of new situation currently being encountered, say by a new guard or prisoner. ... My colleague Lee Ross adds that such an approach invites us to practice "attributional charity." That means we start not by blaming the actor for the deed but rather, being charitable, we first investigate the scene for situational determinants of the act. ...</p><p>The Power of Rules to Shape Reality Situational forces in the SPE combined a number of factors, none of which was very dramatic alone but that together were powerful in their aggregation. One of the key features was the power of rules. Rules are formal, simplified ways of controlling informal complex behavior. They work by externalizing regulations, by establishing what is necessary, acceptable, and rewarded and what is unacceptable and therefore punished. Over time, rules come to have an arbitrary life of their own and the force of legal authority even when they are no longer relevant, are vague, or change with the whims of the enforcers. Our guards could justify most of the harm they did to the prisoners by referencing "the Rules." ...</p><p>17 Some rules are essential for the effective coordination of social behavior, such as audiences listening while performers speak, drivers stopping at red traffic lights, and people not cutting into queues. However, many rules are merely screens for dominance by those who make them or those charged with enforcing them. Naturally, the last rule, as with the SPE rules, always includes punishment for violation of the other rules. Therefore, there must be someone or some agency willing and able to administer such punishment, ideally doing so in a public arena that can serve to deter other potential rule breakers. ...</p><p>When Roles Become Real “Once you put a uniform on, and are given a role, I mean, a job, saying 'your job is to keep these people in line,' then you're certainly not the same person if you're in street clothes and in a different role. You really become that person once you put on the khaki uniform, you put on the glasses, you take the nightstick, and you act the part. That's your costume and you have to act accordingly when you put it on.” -Guard Hellmann When actors enact a fictional character, they often have to take on roles that are dissimilar to their sense of personal identity. They learn to talk, walk, eat, and even to think and to feel as demanded by the role they are performing. Their professional training enables them to maintain the separation of character and identity, to keep self in the background while playing a role that might be dramatically different from who they really are. … Typically, roles are tied to specific situations, jobs, and functions, such as being a professor, doorman, cab driver, minister, social worker, or porn actor. They are enacted when one is in that situation - at home, school, church, or factory, or onstage. Roles can usually be set aside when one returns to his or her "normal" other life. Yet some roles are insidious, are not just scripts that we enact only from time to time; they can become who we are most of the time. They are internalized even as we initially acknowledge them as artificial, temporary, and situationally bound. We become father, mother, son, daughter, neighbor, boss, worker, helper, healer, whore, soldier, beggar man, thief, and many more. To complicate matters further, we all must play multiple roles, some conflicting, some that may challenge our basic values and beliefs. As in the SPE, what starts out as the "just playing a role" caveat to distinguish it from the real individual can have a profound impact when the role behavior gets rewarded. The "class clown" gets attention he can't get from displaying special academic talents but then is never again taken seriously. Even shyness can be a role initially enacted to avoid awkward social encounters, a situational awkwardness, and when practiced enough the role morphs into a shy person. Just as discomfiting, people can do terrible things when they allow the role they play to have rigid boundaries that circumscribe what is appropriate, expected, and reinforced in a given setting. Such rigidity in the role shuts off the traditional morality and values that govern their lives when they are in "normal mode." The ego-defense mechanism of compartmentalization allows us to mentally bind conflicting aspects of our beliefs and experiences into separate chambers that prevent interpretation or cross talk. A good husband can then be a guiltless adulterer; a saintly priest can then be a lifelong pederast; a kindly farmer can then be a heartless slave master. We need to appreciate the power that role-playing can have in shaping our perspectives, for better as well as for </p><p>18 worse, as when adopting the teacher or nurse role translates into a life of sacrifice for the good of one's students and patients. …</p><p>Reciprocal Roles and Their Scripts It is also the case that some roles require reciprocal partnerships; for the guard role to have meaning, somebody has to play prisoner. One can't be a prisoner unless someone is willing to be the guard. In the SPE, no explicit training was required for the performance of roles, no manual of best practices. Recall on Day 1 the awkwardness of the guards and the prisoners' frivolity as each were feeling out their new strange roles. However, very soon, our participants were able to slip easily into their roles as the nature of the power differential at the base of the guard-prisoner symbiosis became clearer. The initial script for guard or prisoner role-playing came from the participants' own experiences with power and powerlessness, of their observation of interactions between parents (traditionally, Dad is guard, Mom the prisoner), of their responses to the authority of doctors, teachers, and bosses, and finally from the cultural inscriptions written upon them by movie accounts of prison life. Society had done the training for us. We had only to record the extent of their improvisation with the roles they played - as our data. ... Postexperimental reports told us that some guards had been especially brutal when they were alone with a prisoner on a toilet run outside the Yard, pushing him into a urinal or against a wall. The most sadistic behaviors we observed took place during the late-night and early-morning shifts, when, as we learned, the guards didn't believe that we were observing or recording them, in a sense, when the experiment was "off." In addition, we have seen that guard abuse of prisoners escalated to new, higher levels each day despite the prisoners' nonresistance and the obvious signs of their deterioration as the full catastrophe of imprisonment was achieved. In one taped interview, a guard laughingly recalled apologizing for having pushed a prisoner on the first day, but by Day 4, he thought nothing of shoving them around and humiliating them. …</p><p>Roles and Responsibility for Transgressions To the extent that we can both live in the skin of a role and yet be able to separate ourselves from it when necessary, we are in a position to "explain away" our personal responsibility for the damage we cause by our role-based actions. We abdicate responsibility for our actions, blaming them on that role, which we convince ourselves is alien to our usual nature. This is an interesting variant of the Nuremberg Trial defense of the Nazi SS leaders: "I was only following orders." Instead the defense becomes "Don't blame me, I was only playing my role at that time in that place - that isn't the real me." Remember Hellmann's justification for his abusive behavior toward Clay-416 that he described in their television interview. He argued that he had been conducting "little experiments of my own" to see how far he could push the prisoners so that they might rebel and stand up for their rights. In effect, he was proposing that he had been mean to stimulate them to be good: their rebellion would be his primary reward for being so cruel. Where is the fallacy in this post hoc justification? It can be readily exposed in how he handled the sausage rebellion by Clay-416 and Sarge's "bastard" rebellion; not with admiration for their standing up for rights or principles but rather with rage and more extreme abuse. Here Guard Hellmann was using the full power of being the ultimate </p><p>19 guard, able to go beyond the demands of the situation to create his own "little experiment" to satisfy his personal curiosity and amusement. ...</p><p>Anonymity and Deindividuation In addition to the power of rules and roles, situational forces mount in power with the introduction of uniforms, costumes, and masks, all disguises of one's usual appearance that promote anonymity and reduce personal accountability. When people feel anonymous in a situation, as if no one is aware of their true identity (and thus that no one probably cares), they can more easily be induced to behave in antisocial ways. This is especially so if the setting grants permission to enact one's impulses or to follow orders or implied guidelines that one would usually disdain. Our silver reflecting sunglasses were one such tool for making the guards, the warden, and me seem more remote and impersonal in our dealings with the prisoners. Their uniforms gave the guards a common identity, as did the necessity of referring to them in the abstract as, "Mr. Correctional Officer." ... I am reminded of a Vietnamese saying, attributed to the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh: "in order to fight each other, baby chicks of the same mother hen paint their faces different colors." It is a quaint way to describe the role of deindividuation in facilitating violence. It is worth noticing, as we shall see, that one of the guards in the infamous Tier lA at Abu Ghraib's torture center painted his face silver and black in the pattern of the rock group Insane Clown Posse, while he was on duty and posed for one of the many photos that documented prisoner abuse. </p><p>Cognitive Dissonance That Rationalizes Evil An interesting consequence of playing a role publicly that is contrary to one's private beliefs is the creation of cognitive dissonance. When there is a discrepancy between our behavior and beliefs, and when actions do not follow from relevant attitudes, a condition of cognitive dissonance is created. Dissonance is a state of tension that can powerfully motivate change either in one's public behavior or in one's private views in efforts to reduce the dissonance. People will go to remarkable lengths to bring discrepant beliefs and behavior into some kind of functional coherence. The greater the discrepancy, the stronger the motivation to achieve consonance and the more extreme changes we can expect to see. There is little dissonance if you harm someone when you have a lot of good reasons - your life was being threatened, it was part of your job as a soldier, you were ordered to act by a powerful authority, or you were given ample rewards for an action that was contrary to your pacifist beliefs. Oddly enough, the dissonance effect becomes greater as the justification for such behavior decreases, for instance, when a repugnant action is carried out for little money, without threat, and with only minimally sufficient justification or inadequate rationale provided for the action. Dissonance mounts, and the attempts to reduce it are greatest, when the person has a sense of free will or when she or he does not notice or fully appreciate the situational pressures urging enactment of the discrepant action. When the discrepant action has been public, it cannot be denied or modified. Thus, the pressure to change is exerted on the softer elements of the dissonance equation, the internal, private elements-values, attitudes, beliefs, and even perceptions. An enormous body of research supports such predictions. </p><p>20 How could dissonance motivate the changes we observed in our SPE guards? They had freely volunteered to work long, hard shifts for a small wage of less than $2 an hour. They were given minimal direction on how to play their difficult role. They had to sustain the role consistently over eight-hour work shifts for days and nights whenever they were in uniform, on the Yard, or in the presence of others, whether prisoners or parents or other visitors. They had to return to that role after sixteen-hour breaks from the SPE routine when they were off duty. Such a powerful source of dissonance was probably a major cause for internalizing the public role behaviors and for providing private supporting cognitive and affective response styles that made for the increasingly assertive and abusive behavior over time. There is more. Having made the commitment to some action dissonant with their personal beliefs, guards felt great pressure to make sense of it, to develop reasons why they were doing something contrary to what they really believed and what they stood for morally. Sensible human beings can be deceived into engaging in irrational actions under many disguised dissonance commitment settings. Social psychology offers ample evidence that when that happens, smart people do stupid things, sane people do crazy things, and moral people do immoral things. After they have done them, they offer "good" rationalizations of why they did what they cannot deny having done. People are less rational than they are adept at rationalizing - explaining away discrepancies between their private morality and actions contrary to it. Doing so allows them to convince themselves and others that rational considerations guided their decision. They are insensitive to their own strong motivation to maintain consistency in the face of such dissonance.</p><p>The Power of Social Approval Typically, people are also unaware of an even stronger force playing on the strings of their behavioral repertoire: the need for social approval. The need to be accepted, liked, and respected - to seem normal and appropriate, to fit in - is so powerful that we are pruned to conform to even the most foolish and outlandish behaviors that strangers tell us is the right way to act. We laugh at the many Candid Camera episodes that reveal this truth, but rarely do we notice the times we ourselves are the Candid Camera "stars" in our own lives. In addition to the dissonance effects, pressures to conform were also operative on our guards. Group pressure from other guards placed significant importance on being a "team player," conforming to an emergent norm that demanded dehumanizing the prisoners in various ways. The good guard was a group deviant, and he suffered in silence by being outside the socially rewarding circle of the other guards on his shift. The tough guard on each shift was emulated by at least one other guard on each shift. …</p><p>21</p>