Information About This Excerpt and the Authors

As part of a 1971 study on social interaction, a group of college students were arrested and sent to a mock prison. After only six days in the experimental prison, these Stanford University students had abandoned their lifelong patterns of social interaction and human values, and unearthed the ugliest side of their nature.

Title: "Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison"
Author: Philip Zimbardo, Craig Haney, Curtis Banks.
Journal: International Journal of Criminology & Penology. Vol. 1(1), pgs. 69-97
Copyright: Feb 1973
Article Number: 1974-32677-001.

Dr. Philip Zimbardo is a professor of psychology at Stanford University, and was re-elected president of the American Psychological Association for 2002. He has written over 200 articles, has made prize-winning contributions to the Discovering Psychology video series (1994), and he has received numerous teaching awards during his thirty-year tenure at Stanford. While his research extends into a range of topics in the field, he is best known for his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.

Links to Related Topics

Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation of the Study
This site includes an interactive timeline to walk visitors through each stage of the experiment, along with video footage, still slides, and related weblinks.

PrisonZone
A website designed to bring the prisoner's world to the viewer, with clickable photos that reveal statistics on the prison population, an art gallery, and links to writings from prisoners.

The Social Psychology Network
An online clearinghouse of Social Psychology resources, with over 5,000 links to sites devoted to the subject.

Current Research in Social Psychology: An Electronic Journal
Click here to find the latest research and ongoing studies in the field of Social Psychology.