Stanford Prison Experiment, 1971
http://www.prisonexp.org
24 male participants, psychologically stable and healthy, predominantly
white and middle-class, selected of the 75 respondents recruited via a newspaper ad, and offered $15 a day ($75 in 2007) for a two-week "prison simulation“.
Guards: no formal guidelines, though “no physical violence”. “It was their responsibility to run the prison, and they could do so in any way they wished”
Prisoners: “wait to be called"
“…Our planned two-week investigation had to be ended prematurely after only six days… In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress” Philip G. Zimbardo (born March 23, 1933)