WEBVTT - How the Stanford Prison Experiment Worked 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.960 Hey, everyone, We're coming to Salt Lake City, Utah and Phoenix, 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.600 Arizona this fall. Yeah, October, we're going to be at 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:09.479 Salt Lake Cities Grand Theater and then the next night 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.880 October will be in Phoenix. And we added a second 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.840 show to our Melbourne show, right, that's right, a second 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.239 earlier show in Melbourne. So you can get all the 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.119 information for all of these shows at s y s 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:26.600 K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:36.040 from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey you, and welcome 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.120 to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.519 Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there. So why don't you pull 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.720 up a chair, kick back and tell us about your problems? 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:50.519 Because this is psychology stuff. We should just call this 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:57.720 episode the Stanford Prison Experiment a k a. Perhaps the 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:01.000 happiest experiment of all time, and it's really not an 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:07.240 experiment anyway, but it's the most famous psychology experiment ever. Yeah. 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.600 I got kind of ticked off while I was researching this, 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:12.600 you should, man, because I used to think it was cool, like, 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.320 oh man, what a cool experiment. Yeah, everybody's evil and 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.399 it's core. Yeah. Then I researched it, and I was like, 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.160 this is a bunch of bs, all of it. This 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:24.280 is one of the worst executed experiments I've ever heard of. 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.200 That is so funny because I while I was researching this, 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:29.039 I was like, I'm gonna have to keep it together. 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:31.160 Maybe at the end I can really go off from 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:33.959 let's go off at the beginning. That's great. Man. I 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:38.200 watched the movie today to yeah, how was it? How 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.240 was Billy crude up? Because I loved him in almost 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:45.639 famous Well, I'm a fan, he's he was good. Um, 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:49.000 But like, I don't know, the movie A was pretty 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:52.960 sensationalized as far as the violence. Like they showed a 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.240 lot of straight up physical violence in the movie which 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:01.480 supposedly didn't occur, um, like beating them with billy clubs 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:06.760 and hog tying them in like like real violence. How actually, 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:11.280 these days I should say at Lanta, Yeah, Uh, y'allywood 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.560 is what they call it. Oh, there you go. Perfect, 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.160 That's that's perfect. That sounds like a Norman Reda's creation. 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:23.799 It might have been uh and then uh, what was 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:26.679 I saying? Oh? Um, I don't feel like it came 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:31.800 down hard enough on on this Yahoo. What was the 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:37.480 guy's name? Zimbardo. Yeah, Zimbardo for just crafting a really 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.519 poor doing a very poor job at crafting its supposedly 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.440 scientific experiment. No, he was like the driving force behind 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:45.959 that movie getting made. Apparently he'd been trying to get 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.639 a movie made in America. He seems to be a 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.640 pretty frameless self promoter decades. Yes, Yeah, it's not a 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.320 good quality in a social psychologist. No, so we're gonna see. 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:57.840 I guess we'll let the cat out of the bag. 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:03.799 But well, we shall see that. Um. The Stanford prison 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.880 experiment one of the most famous experiments in the Annals 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:13.880 of Psychology. It's not an experiment at all. It's it's 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:18.360 findings are wide open new interpretation, and it was conducted 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.399 by a showman. Basically. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.680 a red flag when you don't publish your findings in 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.120 a medical journal. You published them in New York was 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:33.200 a New York magazine, New York Times magazine, Hodgeman's rag. Well, 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.760 great rag, But that's not the place to go publish 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.560 scientific findings. No peer of viewed journals are, and they 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:44.040 circumvented that, but for very good reasons. All right, so 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.520 let's let's talk about the outline. So let's go back 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:48.680 to the beginning, right, Yeah, back to the year of 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:56.960 my birth and Stanford at Stanford University, which is what 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:02.760 Palo Alto. Yeah, uh find being sequoia is what is there? 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.200 They have like a big old sequoia on their logo. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:07.400 I think it's like a and then they have a 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:13.600 uh sequoia with its fists up. That's Notre Dame I'm 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.919 thinking of. I do feel like it has something. Chuck's 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:19.800 looking it up everybody, so let me stall. It is 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.839 a tree, the Stanford Tree. I don't know what the 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.840 mascot is, but there's definitely a tree associated. I looked 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.159 it up, the Stanford Tree. Okay. And the first question 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.840 is why is it a tree? Huh? Well, what's the answer. Well, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.320 I mean, I'm sure it's just because of where it 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.840 is in California, But that doesn't answer the real question, 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.279 which is why would you have a tree? Right Phillips 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.840 Embardo sitting there like quit stall and get to the 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.960 get to the heckling. He's still around, Yeah he is, 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.279 so um, all right, we're at Stanford. It's nine Yeah. 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.960 We're actually in the basement of one of the buildings 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.680 at Stanford, Stanford University. I think like Campbell Hall or 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.279 something like that. And I think August of nineteen seventy one, 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:05.680 there were um twenty four young men, almost all of 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:07.520 them one I think one of them was Asian American, 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.440 and um, they are doing something pretty bizarre in this 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:17.600 basement in August of They've been divided into two groups, 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:23.400 guards and prisoners supposedly average kids, right, and they are 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:30.880 um acting out this basically role playing game of guards 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.440 versus prisoners for fifteen bucks a day in a simulated 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.839 prison in the basement of this this hall at Stanford University. Yeah, 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.400 which would be about nine dollars today, funded by the 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.240 U S Office of Naval Research. Is that right? So 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.520 it would be ninety three bucks a day, and it 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:49.479 was originally gonna be two weeks. So I'm sure some 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.760 of these guys were like, hey, yeah, yeah, I mean 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:53.400 I kind of forgot what it was like to be 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.880 a college student that that would be, uh, you know 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:00.920 what between twelve and four bucks darting off your summer 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:06.680 it would be about dollars if my quick math is correct, 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.800 good scratch for year old. Yeah, two weeks on summer break, 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.520 that's right. So Uh, you were divided into two lots, 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.159 like you said. Um, they asked people, um, supposedly what 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:21.960 you wanted to be, unless this was purely a movie creation, 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:23.880 and they did try and look up and try and 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:28.720 find out the differences. Um, But they supposedly asked him. 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:33.520 In most everyone said, or in fact everyone said prisoner. Uh. 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:35.640 In one of the reactions from who ended up being 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.760 the bad guard, the guy said, they asked him why, 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.720 and he's like, because nobody likes cards. It's like, why 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.479 would anyone want to be a guard? Because they thought 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.000 we'll just be prisoners, because they just will lay around 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.960 smoke cigarettes. So we'll we'll and we'll kind of unpack 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.560 what that suggests later on. Sure. Okay, so you've got 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.320 these these guys and they're down here for this experiment, 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.479 and so coming at it from the way. This is 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:05.920 the popular interpretation of what happened at the Stanford Prison experiment. Okay, 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.720 you've got you've got twelve guards and twelve prisoners. The 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.720 prisoners had been arrested, by the way, by the real 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.320 Palo Alto police. Yeah, they weren't told when, but like 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.400 the real cops came by arrested each one of them 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.280 for you know, a variety of crimes, booked them at 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:26.200 the Palo Alto Police station and then transported them to 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:31.320 the jail, the fake jail in uh at Stanford. Yeah, 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:33.360 they call it the Stanford County Jail. And they did 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.600 a legit job. They put up signs, they had these 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:42.120 rooms decked out like jail cells, they had a whole um. 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.040 They did a really believable job of making this seem 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:49.120 like a prison environment at least so Um, you've got 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.240 these these prisoners who have been delivered, You've got these 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:56.320 guards who are waiting there for him, and um as 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.280 as far as Zimbardo has ever said, these these guards 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:04.240 were told you have to protect the prison and everything 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.480 else is up to you. The only rule is there's 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.480 no physical punishment. We're just here to observe, Like here's 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:14.320 your uniforms, here's your sunglasses. Yeah. And then the prisoners 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:19.440 were booked in with wearing smocks, no shoes, no underwear, Yeah, 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.760 naked under the smocks, chained at the ankles. And then 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.360 they wore like um, those stocking cap do rags, a 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:31.080 panty on their head to simulate to simulate they're having 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.920 their head shaved, right, Uh, and you know, this is 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:37.360 this the early seventies, so most of them had these 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:44.600 big afrozen long hair and stuff under these panties. Right, so, um, 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.840 this is like at first, everything's pretty normal. The guards 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:49.920 don't quite know what to do. They're a little timid. 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:56.960 The prisoners apparently relish this immediately and started like finding 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.800 where the guard's boundaries were, and they started to band together. 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:06.200 And there was actually, I think on day two, the 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.760 the the turnover from day one to two, there was 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:14.160 a prisoner riot. Yeah, I mean they m like you said, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:15.959 they were sort of laughing at first, and I think 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.240 we didn't mention too and this is will end up 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.439 being very very problematic and the first sign that he 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.520 didn't do a good job. Zimbardo actually acted as the 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.319 superintendent of the prison, involved himself in his own experiment 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.040 and had one of it. He had some graduate assistants 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.400 that were assisting in the program. They acted as parole board, 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:38.600 and one of them was the warden that was yeah, 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:44.239 undergrad actually, well the warden Jaffee, his last name was Jaffee. 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:46.760 He was an undergrad at the time and actually he 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.360 had come up with the experiment on his own. Oh, 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:51.800 he was the guy, huh huh. And then um, Zimbardo 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:53.360 was like, this is a really good idea. Let's do 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:57.280 this for real. Imagine the press, right. So yeah, like 0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:59.840 he said, it escalated pretty quickly. After kind of laughing 0:09:59.880 --> 0:10:04.080 at first, these guards got into their roles, to say 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:09.160 the least, and um really kind of started being jerks 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:13.520 in quick order. And after the prisoners were like, hey, 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:15.720 this is kind of funny, like you're being you're not 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.480 being very cool, and they were you know, kind of 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.040 smacked down and and you know, made to do things 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.160 like push ups and jumping jacks and uh, they would 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.360 withhold food and eventually they would like take their beds 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:29.320 away from them and stuff like. It just got worse 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:31.640 and worse, and there was, I think, like you said, 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:36.920 on day two, a an uprising. They got together, threw 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.480 the cots off their beds and through the bed frames 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.439 against the door and wouldn't let them in. So there 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.760 was a prisoner riot. Yeah. That's pretty significant, right, um. 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:51.360 And what's equally significant is that the guards by the 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.080 second day started to show signs of like real cruelty 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.880 toward the prisoners. They started treating them very poorly. Um, 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.920 they started engage aging and basically acts of torture like 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:03.839 waking them up randomly in the middle of the night, 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:06.600 making them get up, like you said, push ups, which 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:10.720 is interpreted as um physical punishment because again you couldn't 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:12.600 you couldn't hit them with the rubber hose, you couldn't 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.520 hit them with the baton, you couldn't punch them. But 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:17.880 if you make somebody to do a bunch of push ups, 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.640 that's physical punishment too. Yeah, and it was within the 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.400 bounds apparently. Yeah. They were referred to only by their 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.199 prison numbers. They would never say their names. They were 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.360 made to memorize everyone else's prison number, and like they 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.720 would line them up and tell them to repeat their 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.400 numbers for like an hour. If they didn't do it 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.320 fast enough and then in reverse order, uh, they would 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.079 get punishment. They would do the kind of the classic 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.960 moves of holding one responsible for the punishment of others. Yeah, 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:46.640 that's a that's a big one. Like if you didn't 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:48.200 make your bed good enough, then no one could go 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.439 to sleep. Stuff like that. The guards also innovated um 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.880 the carrots here there too. They actually made one cell 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.600 like a good cell, like they put a bed in 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.920 it with like betting. Um, if you were in that cell, 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.160 you were eligible for like good meals better than what 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.040 the other prisoners had. And there were room for three 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.520 inmates in there at a time, and so instilled this 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:16.479 sense of competition and and um skullduggery, I guess backstabbery 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:21.040 among the prisoners to curry favor with the guards, like 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.720 by informing on the other ones so that you could 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.199 get a chance to be in like the nice cell. Yeah. 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.160 And I think even before that, like when they went 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.439 to do the when they went to stage the uprising, 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.400 I don't think there were three rooms of three and 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:35.920 I think six of them. Two of the rooms participated 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.000 and one of the rooms did not. And uh, because 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.920 not all the guys, um, you know, not all the 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.160 prisoners like rebelled as much. Some of them just kind 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.480 of went along with it. Interestingly, some of the guards 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.000 did not descend into cruelty. They actually some of them 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:53.760 did like favors, went out of their way to be 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.480 nice to the prisoners. But in um the grabster who 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:01.559 wrote this article points out very significantly, they didn't stand 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:05.520 up to the cruel guards or officially object to their 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:09.800 their behavior. They went along with it. But then in 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.840 their own right, in their own way, they did what 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.439 they could to retain their humanity. So there are two 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.280 huge points and one of them, there's one among the 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:21.959 guards and one among the prisoners. And the one among 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.640 the prisoners comes thirty six hours after the beginning of 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.920 the of the experiment, and this prisoner, his name, it 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:33.280 would later be revealed, was Douglas Corpy. Um, he had 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.880 an emotional breakdown, a nervous breakdown thirty six hours after 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:42.160 this this this experiment starts, one of the prisoners, it 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:48.640 becomes so emotionally involved in this simulated prison at this cruelty, 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.400 the simulated supposedly cruelty of the guards that he had 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.400 a nervous breakdown and had to be had to be 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.640 removed from them the experiment. And this is like, this 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.360 is embardos. This is the official line for the Stanford 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:06.880 Prison experiment and has been for decades. Yeah. He also 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.480 said that one of them broke out in a psychosomatic rash. 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:14.960 There was um all manner of of various levels of 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:19.440 psychological breakdowns happening on the other side. The big star 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:22.040 among the guards was a guy named John Wayne, who 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:27.280 you referenced earlier. Yeah, his name was Dave Eshelman, and 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.360 he was the one who he was the ringleader. He's 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:32.600 the one that came out as the most brutal guard 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:34.920 of them all, and all the other guards kind of 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.640 fell in line behind him and took their cues from him. 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:39.880 So this whole thing is going on, This is crazy 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.440 town in this place. In in six days, six days, 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.840 this thing descends into chaos. Supposed to be two weeks, yes, 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.800 there was. There was rumors that there was going to 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:53.160 be a breakout, and so they moved the experiment. Um. 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.880 There were that that guy Douglas Corpi, who had a 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.280 nervous breakdown, ended up getting put into the whole um 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.960 this broom closet for I think overnight and was finally 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:09.920 released because the the researchers that actually stepped in and said, 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.120 you shoulhould probably let him out. Um. It was. It 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:17.560 was just utter chaos. And then eventually um Phillip Zimbardo's 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.360 girlfriend at the time of a woman named Christine mass 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:24.280 Maslock his wife to be. Um. Oh she married him, 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:28.600 huh um. So she came and just dropped in to 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.320 see how things were going and was so outraged at 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.920 what she saw that she was like, you, you're so 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.320 far beyond the line. You have to stop this now, 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:39.960 like this is this is descended into chaos. You can't 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:44.120 do this. These people are treating these these prisoners horribly, 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:49.400 Like how are you letting this go on? Fine? And 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.600 so the next day he canceled the experiment again after 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:54.800 six days, and it was scheduled to go on for 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:59.920 two weeks. And so he comes out tells the world 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.720 in this New York Times magazine, guys, if I took you, 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:06.840 if I took you josh and I took you Chuck 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.080 and put you as guarden prisoner in an even a 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:14.440 simulated prison, and put a smock on josh and took 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:18.120 his underwear off and uh put a stocking on his head, 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.320 and gave Chuck a baton and some glasses. Chuck would 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.640 beat Josh up, and Joshua probably have his spirit broken 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:29.000 and have a nervous breakdown. It's in everybody. Evil is 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.720 in everybody crumbling at the first sign of adversity. Isn't 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:37.240 everybody We're all just pathetic weaklings? Stanford Prison experiment and 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.960 he ran off and said, I'm famous. All right, that's 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.080 a great setup. So we'll take a break here and 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.280 come back and talk a little bit about the more 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:48.520 about the experiment and the realities of it right after this. 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.119 All right, So you've got John Wayne in there. I 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.160 don't think we mentioned that he took on the persona 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.440 of the prison boss and cool hand Luke. He did 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.680 a fake Southern accent and everything and dove right into 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.600 this role. Um, if you talk to Dave Eshelmann today, 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:29.120 he will say he's very much on record of saying, 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.520 I'm not some jerk, uh, And I didn't get off 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.960 on being sadistic. He said, I wanted to do what 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.320 they paid me fifteen dollars a day to do, which 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.480 was to be a prison guard and to treat these 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.040 guys poorly. And so I you know, he said, I 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.600 did some drama in high school, and I literally acted 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:51.000 this part as well as I could. That was I 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.800 felt was expected and wanted from me, right, And I 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:57.800 put on this fake Southern accent. And if you like 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.359 asked people friends and family today, they would laugh at 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.439 this because I'm really not this guy at all, right, 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:04.800 Because he really comes off as as a bit of 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.560 a villain in this movie. For sure. Well, he perpetrated 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.560 real cruelty on other people and we'll get to that later. 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.800 And he should because the other people actually did suffer 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:23.240 under this guy's leadership as the ringleader of the mean guards, 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:28.880 like they wore pink on Wednesday. It was terrible everywhere, right, So, um, 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:31.240 he really should feel bad, and apparently he does. I 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:33.439 saw that all over the place too, that he feels 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.520 bad for it. But the point is is that he 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:43.200 has said, like, this didn't happen organically, like I I wasn't. 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.280 I wasn't I felt encouraged to play this role. That's 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.119 a big deal because the findings of the Stanford prison 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:52.880 experiments say, if you take some people and say you're 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.200 a guard empower and you will turn evil, they will 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.200 turn evil within a day. A day they said about 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.560 this guy. And this guy's like, no, I was, just 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.040 like you said, doing my job. But they're paying me 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.520 fifteen bucks a day for Let's put that one to 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.560 the side. In that Let's go visit with Douglas Corpi, 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.639 who was the prisoner who in thirty six short hours 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:19.840 of this simulated prison experiment lost his marbles and had 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.400 a nervous breakdown and had to go home. Right, one 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:26.080 of the other two pillars of the findings that people 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.879 are either evil or easily crumble in the face of 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.480 adversity from the Stanford prison experiment. And again, this is 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.600 how this thing has been taught for like fifty years. Okay, Yeah, 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.000 So Corpy comes out and says, I was faking that, 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:41.600 and I put on a big act so I could 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.160 get out of there because it sucked and I didn't 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.159 want to be there anymore. So I fake like I was. 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.480 And he he like one of his quotes was I 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.280 don't have it here, but basically said like any trained 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.159 clinician would have been able to see right through this. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.320 Like when I hear the tapes years later, it's like, 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:02.320 I'm not an actor. I wasn't like apparently the John 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.040 Wayne guy at least had been in like high school 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.480 plays in college too, I think, yeah, And he was like, 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:08.760 I was not an actor. And it was so clear 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.239 to me looking back at these tapes that I was 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.520 faking it, faking a nervous breakdown, faking a nervous breakdown 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.399 to get out of there. So the reason why he 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.240 said later that he did fake this nervous breakdown is 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.879 because he took the job because he thought he'd just 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.000 be laying around, like you said, smoking cigarettes, being a prisoner, 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:28.240 and he would get to study for the g r E. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.720 He was inner grad school and well they said, no, 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:34.000 you can't have your books. Now. They didn't give him anything, 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.000 and this guy was like, whoa, whoa, Wait a minute, 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:37.919 this is day one. He's like, whoa, whoa whoa, Like, 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.080 I need those books. I'm taking the g r E, 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.400 basically leaving here after two weeks and going to take 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.320 the test, like I've got to spend this two week studying. 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.000 They're like, you can't have your books. So he quickly 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.240 saw that the only way out was to fake this 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:54.880 nervous breakdown. And Billy crude Up went in there and said, 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:57.600 why is everyone saying whoa whoa whoa? Only I can 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:01.960 say whoa whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa. Uh yeah, so 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.639 we've kind of poo pooed the two major findings from 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.240 the study already. So that's that's a huge deal, right, 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.320 because again the idea is that if you put people 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.359 any random people, Remember these are just average like middle 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:18.320 middle class white kids, um, which is another problem. Right 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:21.640 if you put if you put any, well, that means 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.760 everybody that's the whole world. Right, If you put anybody 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:26.760 in the world in this situation, they're going to either 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:31.399 turn evil or lose their marbles. So, um, those are 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:33.960 the two findings. That's what everybody took it as at first. 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:36.959 It later came out, now this guy was acting. This 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.439 guy was faking. So what else do we have? Then, Well, 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:46.960 we have this idea that Zimbardo insinuated himself as part 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:50.920 of the experiment, and that actually created the findings from 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:54.600 the Standford prison experiment. So should we put a pin 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:56.480 in that. You want to talk about that now? No, No, 0:21:56.520 --> 0:21:57.879 I want to go. I want to go where you 0:21:57.920 --> 0:21:59.359 want to go. All right, let's put a pin in 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:01.399 that then and talk about a little bit more about 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:05.520 what went on that week. Um, they had everything from 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.480 visitation like you could write a letter to your family 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:11.680 or girlfriend or whoever you want to come visit you 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:14.840 to ask for visitation rights, and the family came in 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:17.199 and they did. They came in and visited for an 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.120 hour and they were in some cases parents were like 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.720 I don't know about this. This is like this just 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:27.080 seems like a really weird thing. And Zimbardo will be like, 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:30.400 oh no, it's totally fine, Like you know, they're the psychologists. Yeah, 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:31.960 like they want to be here, like ask them and 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.360 the the kids. You know, they did say that they 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:42.479 wanted to stay okay, which is which is important? Okay, 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:45.520 so what all? What else is importantess Like, no one 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:47.320 in the visiting hour. I don't think we're like, get 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:49.640 me out of here. They're like no, this is all 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:53.360 part of the part of the act. Essentially. Um, they 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:57.520 had parole hearings inside the course of a week. Somehow 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:00.639 they said that if they they could be released, if 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:03.520 they would forfeit the money. Uh. And this is after 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:06.800 I don't know how many of the six days. But um, 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:10.840 they could not get paid if and be paroled if 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:12.399 they went in front of the parole board. They went 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:14.120 in front of the parole board, some of them did, 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:16.800