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If you happen to be a student of psychology or interest yourself with reading about psychology - I am quite sure you may know, or at least have heard of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment.
In the Summer of 1971, Dr. Philip Zimbardo conducted this study. The main aim of this experiment was to study the behavioural pattern of regular human beings in a prison setting. He wanted to know how readily people would conform to the roles of guards and prisoners in an appropriate environment.
The most vital thing in all experiments are their subjects. And Zimbardo procured his through a newspaper advertisement. He required a group of young male students to be part of this study. It was to be conducted in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford University.
Zimbardo received a total 70 responses for his advertisement. With the promising number they went forward and conducted a set of tests which would help them judge the applicants. They required the most regular kind of people all from similar backgrounds with seemingly no evident mental or physical issues.
Now all these participants were aware of the nature of the experiment, they were also being paid $15 a day for participating in this two week long study.
Twenty-four students were recruited and randomly divided in two groups of twelve. One group was given the role of prisoners and the other group's role was that of a prison guard; while Zimbardo took up the role of the superintendent and an undergraduate student, the prison warden.
So what I want to point out here is that every single person involved with the experiment in anyway were also part of the experiment, they each had a 'role' to play. No one was monitoring the entire thing sans a 'role', basically everyone ended up being unintentional subjects of sort.
This turned out to be a major factor affecting the experiment.
Now Zimbardo was all about authenticity of the situation. He wanted everything to be as real as possible. He had set up a fake County jail in the basement with three cells and a storage cupboard to be used for means of punishment. He even had the 'prisoners' arrested and picked up from their home. They were then taken to the Paolo Alto police station and treated no less than an actual criminal, they were photographed, fingerprinted and booked. From there, they were driven to the faux jail at Jordan Hall. There they were stripped naked, deloused and their personal belongings were taken away. And this procedure, at Jordan Hall, was carried out by the other group of subjects who were playing the role of prison guards.
All of this was being filmed with hidden cameras, albeit with the participant's consent. One place where the consent was lacking was the public arrest of the 'prisoners'. They were caught completely unaware and as far as my research goes, they had not agreed to it before hand.
