
Zimbardo’s Rebuttal Against Recent Criticisms of the Stanford Prison Experiment - LopRabbit
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qlEcNiK8CBkJOU1YMyz_OSWIIAq6sMXl/view
======
schizoidboy
Previous HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17287319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17287319)

I have no strong opinions either way, but one meta-point I personally find
interesting is: why don't journalists send a final draft of an article to the
people involved and get a final round of comments? That just seems fair.
Zimbardo claims some facts in the article are simply wrong, and either 1)
those errors would be corrected, or 2) Zimbardo's response to those claims
could stand side-by-side, instead of this bifurcated situation of articles and
response articles.

I think it would be even better if these arguments were in a wiki (or git)
style instead of a series of articles.

~~~
dp141
Having worked as a journalist previously, it's funny how this is often almost
impossible in practice. Most of the time subjects don't want to comment,
ignore, or responses are handled by a PR person who doesn't provide adequate
comment. Then, when you do publish and you get X detail wrong they blast you,
or the subject themselves bemoans how they were never given the opportunity to
comment. Not that journalists are above reproach but I can't tell you how many
times people got annoyed about not being able to to tell their side of the
story or how X or Y was misrepresented when they were given countless ops to
do put forward their own case.

Attitude toward journalists these days, partly because of more
professionalised PR is hugely adversarial rather than co-operative. Anyway
/rant.

~~~
marcoperaza
Giving a statement to a journalist who has already made up their mind that
you’re a bad guy is probably a mistake. Especially when it comes to politics,
the other side will take whatever you say out of context and present it in the
light most unfavorable to you. Morally-exculpatory nuance goes out the window,
or buried at the bottom of the article (the part that we know no one reads).
The headline will be spun to make you sound like a monster (see CNN’s
headlines about Mr. Damore: that he thought “women are biologically unfit for
tech jobs”).

Most people should make all statements with the assistance of professional PR
if they’re in such a situation. Just like how anyone being interrogated by the
police should only speak with the advice with a lawyer, no matter how innocent
they actually are.

~~~
dp141
True, there are 100 per cent people on vendettas hatchet jobs but more
reputable publishers are better at curtailing the ill-will of a single writer.

~~~
nailer
There are many people that believe CNN is a reputable publisher. Even after
the Japan fish feeding hoax, fabrications about the contents of the Damore
memo, and even denying their own "I'm sure in individual cases" interview with
Obama administration re: child seperation this last 24 hours.

Quick edit due to downmods: dear partisan Americans: I don't particularly care
for either side of your politics. I'm not saying Fox is any better, and I
think Donald Trump's a nasty and very hypocritical individual. But 1 and 3 are
easily proven false on video, and 2 is clearly different from the content of
the Damore memo, which you can read online. You're lying to yourself if you
refuse to believe evidence about CNN fabricating any of these stories.

As @Notradamus says before, giving a quote to a journalist allows them to
shape the story. There is no reason to do that: you can self publish and still
reach the masses in your own words, without risking someone else cutting
video, lying about you, or denying something happened even when they filmed it
themselves.

~~~
icebraining
I'm not a partisan American (particularly not the latter), but I find your
anti-CNN rant to be an irrelevant distraction in this topic.

~~~
nailer
The parent makes the point that one should use a reputable publisher. I'm
arguing that publishers generally considered reputable aren't particularly
different from those that are not (as the parent to that correctly notes, with
fewer examples). What do you think isn't relevant?

~~~
Guvante
Because nothing you said disproves what the parent said, it simply gave an
annecdote about what bad things a publisher did, unless you would categorize
those as "ill-will of a single writer".

Claiming systematic bias can also lead to that would have been fine in
contrast, maybe even mentioning it has happened vaugely and bringing up your
CNN example when challenged.

The down votes are likely because your post could seemingly be summarized as
"but Fake News" which has people on edge. Sure that isn't what you said but
your phrasing makes that an easy mistake to make as a reader.

~~~
nailer
> Because nothing you said disproves what the parent said, it simply gave an
> annecdote about what bad things a publisher did, unless you would categorize
> those as "ill-will of a single writer".

Well the general implication in the paresnt discussing fabrication as 'the ill
of a single writer' and that a reputable publication should curtail them.
You're right in that a 'reputable publication' may also simply deliberately
craft lies as an organisation, rather than this happening as the result of the
individual journalist.

> The down votes are likely because your post could seemingly be summarized as
> "but Fake News" which has people on edge.

Hence the edit restating that every single one of those is either well known
or provable. Anyone can watch the unedited fish feeding video, read Damore's
original memo, or see the CNN interview wherethe Obama admin talks about
sepration happening. Something being a popular saying doesn't make it untrue.
A more simple an likely explanation is that a US citizen's understanding of
reality is now determined on a tribal basis rather than a factual one.

~~~
Guvante
> Hence the edit restating that every single one of those is either well known
> or provable.

But news organizations lie. All of them do and they do it on a routine basis.

On the topic of your examples:

1\. It appears that the article recognizes the normality in its last sentence,
so this was corrected 2\. I don't see anything in the Damore article
([http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/15/technology/culture/james-
dam...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/15/technology/culture/james-damore-
interview/index.html)) that seemed to disagree with his memo unless I am
missing a subtly. 3\. This seems to be a failure to acknowledge and not a
fabrication best I can tell (too difficult to find what disputes the original
comment)

These seems to be examples where CNN has corrected the stories quietly instead
of issuing a retraction best I can tell which while I agree is annoying at
least is ensuring the latest version of the article is as accurate as possible
(including in "accuracy" intended tone here). How to best handle such
corrections is hard.

------
marcoperaza
The criticism that the participants were just doing as they were told has
always seemed to me as rather missing the point. What better demonstration is
there of the human capacity for cruelty than a bunch of Stanford undergrads
torturing other students because a professor told them to?

~~~
CamperBob2
What I find interesting are the people who are absolutely _fanatical_ about
disputing Zimbardo's conclusions. It's as if it's very important to them
personally to be able to classify potential perpetrators of atrocities into
two simplistic categories, People Who Do Stuff Like That and People Who,
Somehow, Magically, Don't. Any experiments that might reveal human nature as
the ultimate culprit are considered politically incorrect and unacceptable to
perform.

Yes, the Stanford Prison Experiment was a dumpster fire. But so was the Nazi
regime. When you want to study dumpster fires, you could do worse than to
start a small-scale dumpster fire of your own and see how things progress.

~~~
knight-of-lambd
Well said. I think it's instinctual to want to believe there is some
intrinsic, insurmountable difference between us and them (people who do
morally repugnant things). At the heart of it, it's tribalism.

This quote from Solzhenitsyn springs to mind. I have always kept it close to
heart:

>If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere
insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them
from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts
through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece
of his own heart?

~~~
JackFr
> Well said. I think it's instinctual to want to believe there is some
> intrinsic, insurmountable difference between us and them (people who do
> morally repugnant things). At the heart of it, it's tribalism.

Or maybe they’re just tired of crap science that just won’t die.

When you want to make your point, just use “Lord of the Flies” instead. It
makes compelling, similar points about the human condition. But it just does
it as a novel, not as a fake experiment.

~~~
knight-of-lambd
For a more solid experiment, there's the BBC prison study:
[http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org](http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org)

Different conclusions, just as fascinating.

------
madhadron
Ah yes, the Stanford Prison Experiment, which makes serious psychologists sigh
and roll there eyes. Putting aside ethical considerations, it was so
confounded as to be completely useless.

~~~
twblalock
It's taken seriously enough to be taught in every university survey course on
psychology and sociology, and that wouldn't still be happening if the
"serious" people in those disciplines wanted to stop.

~~~
duxup
I was taught it.... in a way to say "this is not how to research things and if
you heard about this you should probabbly rethink anything you think about
it".

~~~
rusk
_> "this is not how to research things _

Yes, this is how it was taught to me also.

An example of "how not to do it" and something that would never pass the
ethical review board in modern academia.

~~~
JdeBP
Whilst that may indeed be what you were taught, Jared M. Bartels paints a
rather different picture of what introductory textbooks have been found to say
on this subject.

* [http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1475725714568007](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1475725714568007)

~~~
rusk
You're right actually. I recall the textbooks did present the study in a
different light to what we were taught in class. Interestingly the discussion
in these textbooks never went into much detail, usually just providing a brief
overview of it and noting that it was "important".

As a more mature reader I might read between the lines there and wonder.

------
chiefalchemist
What's there to debate? Run it 2 or 3 times again. Publish the results.

Is that not the definition of Science?

~~~
anitil
I think that the experiment would struggle to pass ethical review these days,
so this might never be possible.

~~~
pmoriarty
In the US and other countries with similar ethical standards.

It might be doable in other countries that have different ethical standards.

------
bruthafez
Zimbardo has lost all credibility, the fact that this begins with anything but
a point-by-point refutation of the Medium article just highlights that fact.

The Medium article was highly illuminating and included so many different
sources that Zimbardo's response here just reads as a desperate attempt to
regain credibility that's LONG gone.

------
AlexCoventry
> He had befriended both Carlo and me in an attempt to get me to agree to give
> him screen rights to a Hollywood movie about the SPE. When instead, I chose
> to go with Maverick Films producer, Brent Emery, Lazarou began writing
> negative critiques of both me and the SPE.

Why does anyone need Zimbardo's permission to write a screenplay involving the
SPE?

------
mindgam3
Zimbardo is a disgrace. There are legitimate results in the field of
psychology, but the Stanford Prison Experiment is not one of them. All it ever
proved was that Zimbardo's ethics was highly compromised.

In the final paragraph, he claims to be "promoting what is best in human
nature. That in [sic] my current life mission." In reality the only thing he's
ever been good at promoting is himself. And I know this is trivial and stupid,
but he couldn't even avoid a typo in the last line of his rebuttal? Come on.

------
wavefunction
This guy is completely unethical. In addition to his famous 'Prison
Experiment' he engaged in relations with one of his graduate students.

Psychology is full of hucksters like Zimbardo.

~~~
valuearb
Sure, Psychology isn’t much of a science, but the list of college professors
who didn’t sleep with students in the 70s has to be very, very, short.

~~~
catamorphismic
Since when is psychology not much of a science?

~~~
michaelt
I'm guessing valuearb means the few decades of research that lead up to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#In_psycholo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#In_psychology)
?

------
didibus
If anything, this whole debacle has revealed to me how pathetic the whole
"science" of psychology is in its current state.

I mean, the emblem of its field can't even acknowledge any flaw in his
experiment. I'm not saying it was bogus, but it's pretty obviously biased and
flawed in many ways. Even if executed with perfect methodology, which it
clearly wasn't, that sample size and the bias in participants literally
provides no value.

At least if they had the humility to acknowledge how primitive the whole thing
was, and that there's much more to learn. But it seems they're just like, here
it is folks, undeniable unarguable proof, we're done, let's close shop.

I mean, has the field of psychology given us anything of value? I'm asking
genuinely. I'm now under the impression it did not. In fact, it seems it has
mostly been used as a tool to justify atrocities under the guise of science
instead of religion, more often then it actually enabled us to understand
ourselves better and thus organise our society more optimally, or correct and
alter negative behaviours.

~~~
alexandercrohde
> If anything, this whole debacle has revealed to me how pathetic the whole
> "science" of psychology is in its current state.

What? How an academic being defensive of his study, conducted in 1971, an
invalidation of "current" psychology? That's 40 years ago.

> I mean, has the field of psychology given us anything of value? I'm asking
> genuinely.

What an extreme leap, and an odd generalization for me to have to argue
against. How about Milgram, Asch, Cognitive Dissonance? Studies of memory,
vision, neurons can inform the development of AI. Things like IQ tests have
helped detect and prove that leaded gasoline was damaging the intellect of a
generation. Psychology is THE field to give clarity to question such as what
gender dysphoria is about (research shows it is usually correlated with a
brain that is more structurally similar to the gender one identifies as [1]).

So I'm not sure where a wholesale indictment of a field could really come
from.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_transsexuality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_transsexuality)

~~~
didibus
That wiki link, did you read the section on psychology in it? It pretty much
reinforces my opionion. Seems like most of the real understanding of it is
coming from biological factors.

Now it seems that those initial psychological theories were all argued with
similarly low sample and methodologically wonky studies. Just paraphrasing the
wikipedia link. In effect, that probably hurt more then it helped and that's
why we're starting to see things like Denmark declassifying it as no longer a
mental disorder.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-
transgender...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-transgender-
is-no-longer-a-diagnosis/)

Edit: I know I'm making a big blanket statement. As someone who does not read
about all the latest psychological breakthrough, I'm saying in honesty that
with my limited knowledge, the impression I get from psychological research is
that its not very thorough. So I'm open to hearing that in the last 40 years
this has changed, an example would be great, so that I can start maybe
changing my opinion.

~~~
alexandercrohde
1\. I provided 6 separate examples of the use of psychology (3 experiments, 3
real-world use-cases). You responded to one.

2\. Something being biological is not contrary to it being psychological.

Your response is disingenuous. You certainly are well-aware that your blanket
statement was a rash, emotional inaccuracy. Rather than concede that point,
you're choosing to try to nit-pick at one sixth of the refutation.

This is HN, best just to admit your mistake.

------
Svexar
Psychology isn't falsifiable. It is not science.

~~~
YouAreGreat
Not _necessarily._ In an ideal world psychology could be scientific.

In this world, however, we observe that the Behaviorists, who were uniquely
concerned with holding psychology to _strict_ scientific standards, where
ganged up upon and hounded out of the field. The hounders can't be trusted.

~~~
catamorphismic
Behaviorism isn't simply about holding psychology to a higher scientific
standard and it is misguided to imply it is the only psychological paradigm to
have done so. As an easy counterexample, take a look at cognitive psychology.

------
viburnum
He should STFU and be glad he isn't in prison for kidnapping.

------
phobosdeimos
Anyone who is criticizing this experiment I challenge to go undercover as a
prison guard or go work for ICE. In fact many journalists have done this in
the past.

Dehumanization of the other mixed in with a bit of fear and _poof_
civilization is out the window. Hello Colonel Kurtz.

~~~
Nokinside
The effect the experiment attempts to demonstrate can be true while the prison
experiment itself can be complete sham.

