 "Illustration by Binay Sinha")
In August 1971, Stanford Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo organised an experiment. Two dozen Stanford students were divided on the flip of a coin half each into prisoners and wardens. A “prison” was set up in the basement of the Psychology building. The purpose was to assess whether roles of authority lead to exploitative use of power. The experiment was to last two weeks, but was abandoned after six days, ostensibly because the bright middle-class students who had become wardens began to humiliate and abuse their bright middle-class fellow students who had become prisoners.
This experiment acquired the status of legend
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