BBC Prison Study
The BBC Prison Study was a social psychology experiment conducted in 2002, inspired by the Stanford Prison Experiment. It aimed to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power and authority in a simulated prison environment. The study highlighted the potential for individuals to conform to social roles and the ethical considerations of conducting research in such settings.
6 Key excerpts on "BBC Prison Study"
eBook - ePubPower and Identity
Perspectives from the social sciences
- Denis Sindic, Manuela Barreto, Rui Costa-Lopes, Denis Sindic, Manuela Barreto, Rui Costa-Lopes(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...Furthermore, because it lacks this immediacy and intensity, the work also fails to grab (and constrain) our imaginations in quite the same way as the SPE. Any attempt to develop our understanding of domination and resistance cannot therefore ignore Zimbardo’s work; rather, it must be confronted head on. This was what we sought to do through the BBC Prison Study. In short, we wanted to create an environment in which we could interrogate intergroup struggles through a social identity lens. So, in its conception, our study was intended and designed to marry together the heroic scale of the classic field studies with the conceptual precision of contemporary social psychology (and of the social identity tradition in particular). We set our focus wide enough to pick up signs of conformity and resistance, and, as we have already intimated, at various stages of the study we introduced a series of theoretically informed interventions designed to impact on the balance between conformity and resistance. Then we used the various data sources outlined above in order to examine the antecedents of group identification and also its consequences for both intra- and inter-group processes. Full details of both the study design and the study findings can be found elsewhere (Haslam & Reicher, 2002; Reicher & Haslam, 2006a). For now, we will simply outline the elements that are necessary to frame a discussion of the interrelationship between identity, power and powerlessness. A narrative of the BBC Prison Study Set up We ran the BBC Prison Study as we would any other study: we were responsible for designing it, operationalising it, taking it through normal University ethical procedures, running it, analysing it, and defining the story to be told from it...
eBook - ePubSocial Psychology
Revisiting the Classic Studies
- Joanne R. Smith, S Alexander Haslam, Joanne R. Smith, S. Alexander Haslam(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
...Observer, 20 (5): 9 – 10. Lovibond, S.H., Mithiran, X. and Adams, W.G. (1979) ‘ The effects of three experimental prison environments on the behaviour of non-convict volunteer subjects ’, Australian Psychologist, 14 : 273 – 87. Prescott, C. (2005) ‘ The lie of the Stanford Prison Experiment ’, The Stanford Daily, 28 April : 8. Available at: www.stanforddaily.com/2005/04/28/the-lie-of-the-standford-prison-experiment/. Reicher, S.D. and Haslam, S.A. (2006) ‘ Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC Prison Study ’, British Journal of Social Psychology, 45 : 1 – 40. Savin, H.B. (1973) ‘ Professors and psychological researchers: Conflicting values in conflicting roles ’, Cognition, 2 : 147 – 9. Tajfel, H. and Turner, J.C. (1979) ‘ An integrative theory of intergroup conflict ’, in W.G. Austin and S. Worchel (eds), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Monterey, CA : Brooks/Cole. pp. 33 – 48. Time (1972) ‘ A year ago at Attica ’, 100 (13), 25 Sept : 22. Zimbardo, P.G. (1971) ‘ The psychological power and pathology of imprisonment ’, Hearings before Subcommittee No.3 of the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives Ninety-Second Congress, First sessions on corrections – Part II, Prisons, prison reform, and prisoners’ rights: California (Serial No. 15, 25 October). Washington, DC : US Government Printing Office. Zimbardo, P.G. (1973) ‘ On the ethics of intervention in human psychological research: With special reference to the Stanford Prison Experiment ’, Cognition, 2 : 243 – 56. Zimbardo, P. (1989) Quiet Rage (video). Stanford, CA : Stanford University. Zimbardo, P.G. (2004) ‘ A situationist perspective on the psychology of evil: Understanding how good people are transformed into perpetrators ’, in A. Miller (ed.), The Social Psychology of Good and Evil. New York : Guilford. pp. 21 – 50. Zimbardo, P. (2007) The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil. London : Random House....
eBook - ePub- Jan De Vos(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Initially nothing much happens, things only start to unravel on the second day. The prisoners remove their stocking caps, rip off their numbers and barricade themselves inside the cells. Zimbardo writes that he was stunned. He had not expected a rebellion and it was not clear to him what they were rebelling against. But, one is tempted to see Zimbardo’s surprise as feigned: for were not these kinds of events what he had hoped for? Zimbardo, however, is convinced that he sees the ‘real thing’ and does not appear to understand the dynamics of his own script and its loops. With Milgram the script entailed the juxtaposition of authority and conscience, which was then transcended by the psychologising disclosure of the de-briefing. Zimbardo, on the other hand, sets out with the assumed power of psychological discourse itself and what results from this is the creation of an opposition between those within this discourse and those outside it. In other words, while the guards’ orientation constitutes a class of those informed by psychology, in the same movement, it constitutes the prisoners as the humiliated and debased objects of the psychological discourse. This is precisely what Reicher and Haslam miss in their BBC Prison Study (Reicher, 2006). Their study challenges Zimbardo’s theory that behaviour is determined by assigned roles and criticises the underlying message that resistance is futile. Consequently, the BBC Prison Study focuses on the ‘manipulations of theoretically relevant variables’ rather than assigned roles (Reicher, 2006, p. 7). Summarising their findings, Reicher and Haslam state that it is powerlessness and a failure of the group that makes tyranny psychologically acceptable. That these results seem to prove what had to be proved is not the issue here. More important is that Reicher and Haslam psychologise the situation even more than Zimbardo...
- Edward S. Neukrug(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...After passing psychological wellness testing, half of the student participants were assigned to act as “guards,” and the other half were assigned to act as “prisoners.” They were paid $15 per day. Zimbardo initially instructed the guards to maintain law and order without using physical violence, noting that they would have total power in the situation and the student prisoners would not have any say. Subsequently, the student prisoners were brought to the prison basement blindfolded to confuse them about their whereabouts. Thereafter, they were actually stripped and deloused, and the degradation process began (i.e., the guards, because of their position of power, made fun of the prisoners). Over the course of the 6 days, the guards became oppressive, and the prisoners did not support one another. One guard even considered leaving the project but did not. Half of the prisoners left the project due to reported emotional or cognitive concerns. Unlike the guards, they were not allowed to leave on a daily basis. The study showed how power corrupts and how victims of abuse do not stand up for themselves or other victims. Whereas the student guards had become cruel and sadistic toward the prisoners (including use of prohibited physical abuse), the prisoners had become hopeless and depressed. The study furthered the debate about the ethics of using human subjects, just as Stanley Milgram’s study on the abuse of authority had done a decade earlier. Interestingly, like Zimbardo, Milgram had attended James Monroe High School in the Bronx and was interested in the power of social situations to overwhelm individuals. Zimbardo examined how individuals respond to being oppressed, whether they would accept or act against it. His study, like Milgram’s, brought about changes to ethical guidelines, thus introducing better safeguards to protect human participants in psychological research...
eBook - ePubPsychology and Politics
A Social Identity Perspective
- Alexa Ispas(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...However, a closer examination of the findings reveals a great variety in the extent to which the guards conformed to their role. 3 Social identity research based on Zimbardo's paradigm provides further evidence that Zimbardo's findings were due to the particular dynamics of the situation. When these dynamics were changed, the prisoners developed a shared social identity that allowed them to triumph over the guards, who lacked this shared social identity within their group. 4 Further developments of the study also show, contrary to Zimbardo's critique of groups, that it is when groups are ineffective that they become susceptible to influence by authoritarian groups. Focus questions • What do Milgram's interpretation of his obedience studies, and Zimbardo's take on the Stanford prison experiment, have in common? • What are the psychological factors that led to the experimenter's effectiveness in Milgram's study? • Critically analyze Zimbardo's interpretation of the Stanford prison experiment using evidence from social identity research. • What are the psychological underpinnings of the rise to power of authoritarian regimes? • What psychological tools of resistance are available when confronted with authoritarian regimes? Further reading Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin. Blass, T. (2004). The Man Who Shocked the World. New York: Basic Books. Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority. London: Tavistock. Reicher, S. D., & Haslam, S. A. (2006). Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC Prison Study. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 1–40. Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. New York: Random House....
eBook - ePub- Howard Burton(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Ideas Roadshow(Publisher)
...This doesn’t really apply to us, or was it more like, We really do have to rethink this exclusive emphasis on individual behaviour? PZ : There was a very mixed reaction. Some people said it was enlightening. It’s now come to be regarded as a bookend, with the Milgram study, on abuses of authority. Stanley was concerned with the power of individual authority, whereas I was looking at the power of situational authority, institutional authority, if you will. That covers a lot of ground, and makes us aware that situations influence us much more than we are aware of. On the other hand, people said, “You didn’t have a control group: you didn’t have people who signed up who were not in the study to show that they didn’t change over time.” There was a lot of negative reaction. The study was not enthusiastically accepted. People were not saying, “Wow, here’s a new concept that we should be working into our thinking.” Years later, there was a BBC replication of the experiment—it was a farce actually—in which they created a very realistic prison. But there, in the end, the prisoners took over and the guards got emotional and broke down. They had to call in a labour mediator to mediate between the guards and the prisoners because the prisoners were dominating the prison. Also this: the day after we finished our study, on August 21st, 1971, there was a riot at San Quentin Prison—half an hour from my home in San Francisco—in which George Jackson, an African-American anti-prison activist was killed, along with a number of guards and inmates. Some people say he was set up and murdered. Three weeks later, at Attica Prison in New York, the prisoners, in sympathy with what they believed to be the murder of George Jackson, went on a hunger strike and then realized that they had new power over the group. Prisoners who used to be in competition—blacks, Hispanics, neo-Nazis—now, together, could take over the prison, and they did...
