Selects: How the Stanford Prison Experiment Worked

# Stuff You Should Know - The Stanford Prison Experiment

In this episode, Josh and Chuck take a deep dive into one of psychology's most famous and misrepresented studies: the Stanford Prison Experiment. They explore how Zimbardo's 1971 basement experiment, which claimed to prove that ordinary people become inherently cruel when given power, actually fell apart under scrutiny when key participants admitted they were faking their breakdowns and the guards revealed they were coached to be brutal. The hosts walk through the numerous methodological problems—no control group, biased recruitment, Zimbardo's own participation as superintendent—and reveal how the supposedly groundbreaking findings have been perpetuated for fifty years despite being scientifically indefensible.