
A chat with the creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment - fraqed
http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/the-man-who-played-with-absolute-power
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projektir
This used to be one of my favorite studies and now I see it as basically a
trash study. Not something we can replicate, mechanisms are poor, yet the
implications were huge. We really should be more careful with things like
this. With all the replication and quality issues in social and psych studies
right now, I think the tide is turning and maybe we can go back to philosophy.

~~~
sndean
Yeah, the Milgram experiment had similar implications, was clearly better
designed, and variations of it have been replicated several times [0].

Interesting that Milgram and Zimbardo were in the same high school class

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment)

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dannylandau
I wonder if any student that actually participated in this experiment has a
different take on things?

~~~
nether
Yep; John Mark, a guard.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2y5sbt/iwasa_guard_in...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2y5sbt/iwasa_guard_in_the_1971_stanford_prison/)

> I personally think Zimbardo is a self-promoting sensationalists more than a
> serious academic researcher and I think he was aware that this had the
> potential to make his career.

The aforementioned chat is a bunch of softballs. I do think this study
warrants much more scrutiny.

~~~
throw_away
In the original link, Zimbardo misrepresents things a little bit by saying
that he was ultimately the one who intervened when, in reality, it was another
researcher (who was romantically involved with him and who later became his
wife):

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

[http://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/970108prisonexp.html](http://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/970108prisonexp.html)

