Blog Post #5 - The Zimbardo Experiment

The Zimbardo Experiment was a psychological experiment conducted at Stanford University in 1971. This studied the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner, or a prison guard. It was run by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo, and he even played the role of superintendent. The experiment took place in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Twenty-four male students were selected at random to take the role of the prisoners, and the guards. The participants became far more engaged than  Zimbardo's expected, and truly became the role. The guards enforced authoritarian measures and subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to prevent it. As I mentioned before, Zimbardo played the role of superintendent, and even permitted the abuse to continue. Two of the prisoners quit the experiment early, and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. This was because the experiment was getting out of hand.

This experiment connects to The Book of Negroes because it shows how once people are in an authority role, they take it way too far. They beat the prisoners and slaves, just because they can, and feel they have the authority to do so. The slaves were beaten and treated like animals, and sometimes even worse.