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The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

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Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

#61

Post by yreg »

AlbertCory wrote: post #50
nickff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His response is informative, and should be read against what I believe to be a stronger case than the OP (and linked from it): https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/2019-letexier.pdf Some of the more damning parts: > "Of the students tested, 81% accurately figured out the experimenter’s hypothesis (that guards would be aggressive and that prisoners would revolt or comply), and 90% predicted that the guards would be “oppre…

>> 81% accurately figured out the experimenter’s hypothesis so what? Did they get a grade on their participation? I'd bet not. So why would they care what the hypothesis was? >> The experimenters intervened directly in the experiment, either to give precise instructions, to recall the purposes of the experiment, or to set a general direction. PZ says they said, "We noticed this morning that you weren't really, you kn…

> so what?

It affects subject behaviour and contaminates the experiment.

Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

#62

Post by jMyles »

adastra22 wrote: post #26
AlbertCory wrote: post #15

Everyone's heard the stories of how it was "fake." How many of you have actually read Dr. Zimbardo's own response to the debunking? https://www.prisonexp.org/response

I have read it. He basically doesn’t address any of the criticism, he just reframes to claim that the experiment was actually testing something different than what we’ve all understood it to be. Maybe that is true. In which case he would be a terrible scientist rather than a fraudulent one. Even so, that still makes the legacy of the SPE false, and one has to wonder why he never corrected the record in the nearly 50…

I've read his response many times, including the day it was posted.

I find it to be thoughtful and thorough, although imbued with the passion that launched the experiment (and instructions) in the first place, which I surmise may be part of the critique you find unanswered?

May I ask which specific critiques you believe survive his response and impugn the study?

> the nearly 50 years between the experiment and its failure to replicate.

Obviously Zimbardo (and, it seems to me, a substantial chorus of reputable sociologists and prison reformers) have a different impression. I think we can safely characterize the response to the replication critique to be:

a) The attempts to replicate the study which have actually attempted to imbue the participants with the cultural and psychological accurements of prison life (including, sometimes, express expectations of toughness and control, which are real and documented aspects of standing orders at many prisons) have in fact successfully replicated the SPE - the NSW is the one Zimbardo cites in his response of course.

b) The popular "failure" in replication by the BBC, which is cited all over the internet every time this comes up (though I presume from your cautious wording, is not part of your critique) is very poorly constructed and has little in common with the parameters of the SPE.

c) Real-world prisons which have been studied at length, including some domestic maximum security or supermax prisons and also some detainment during the "global war on terror", have exhibited very similar outcomes to some of those observed in the SPE.

d) It is not possible in an academic context to perform the SPE anymore, as neither the instructions given nor the consent to prolonged stressful conditions are generally permitted in human experimentation anymore.

I find the SPE to be highly imperfect, but failure to replicate is not among the criticisms which seem to me to be justly leveled against it.

Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

#63

Post by yreg »

cantrevealname wrote: post #27

Are there discoveries or theories from the field of psychology that are (a) not obvious and (b) generally regarded as correct? For example, things like general relativity, continental drift, or evolution from the fields of physics, geology, and biology. Does psychology have anything like that?

Anchoring effect is a very simple one and easy to replicate.

But in general the psychology knowledge is a lot less certain than that of natural sciences, precisely because the experiments are very difficult to conduct and the results often turn out to be irreproducible.

Also, people are diverse and behave diversly and it is impossible to get a sample that represents humanity for your experiment.

Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

#64

Post by lmm »

cantrevealname wrote: post #27

Are there discoveries or theories from the field of psychology that are (a) not obvious and (b) generally regarded as correct? For example, things like general relativity, continental drift, or evolution from the fields of physics, geology, and biology. Does psychology have anything like that?

For me the big one is unreliability of memory (particularly relevant in the context of eyewitness testimony) - all the Elizabeth Loftus stuff. That's solid science and results that were originally surprising but are now pretty much generally accepted.

Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

#65

Post by germinalphrase »

cantrevealname wrote: post #27

Are there discoveries or theories from the field of psychology that are (a) not obvious and (b) generally regarded as correct? For example, things like general relativity, continental drift, or evolution from the fields of physics, geology, and biology. Does psychology have anything like that?

The foundations of attachment theory are well replicated though the early experiments probably wouldn’t pass contemporary ethics standards.

Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

#66

Post by sarchertech »

pikma wrote: post #32
cantrevealname wrote: post #27

Are there discoveries or theories from the field of psychology that are (a) not obvious and (b) generally regarded as correct? For example, things like general relativity, continental drift, or evolution from the fields of physics, geology, and biology. Does psychology have anything like that?

Not a psychology researcher, but I think that the Milgram experiment has been fairly well replicated. Please anyone let me know if not. I personally found it to be non-obvious.

“Many of Milgram’s participants believed it to be impossible that the prestigious Yale University experimenter would allow real harm to be inflicted on an experimental subject. Although Milgram claimed that 75% of his participants thought they were administering painful shocks, Perry’s re-analysis of the data showed that “It’s more truthful to say that only half of the people who undertook the experiment fully believed it was real, and of those, two-thirds disobeyed the experimenter” (p. 163). Furthermore, she argues that many of those who did administer the maximum amount of shock did so because they were confident the shock wasn’t real or that the experiment was an elaborate ruse.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/...

Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

#67

Post by sarchertech »

mgh2 wrote: post #39

Is there anything similar on Milgram's experiment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

“Many of Milgram’s participants believed it to be impossible that the prestigious Yale University experimenter would allow real harm to be inflicted on an experimental subject. Although Milgram claimed that 75% of his participants thought they were administering painful shocks, Perry’s re-analysis of the data showed that “It’s more truthful to say that only half of the people who undertook the experiment fully believed it was real, and of those, two-thirds disobeyed the experimenter” (p. 163). Furthermore, she argues that many of those who did administer the maximum amount of shock did so because they were confident the shock wasn’t real or that the experiment was an elaborate ruse.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/...

Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

#68

Post by slumberdisrupt »

cantrevealname wrote: post #27

Are there discoveries or theories from the field of psychology that are (a) not obvious and (b) generally regarded as correct? For example, things like general relativity, continental drift, or evolution from the fields of physics, geology, and biology. Does psychology have anything like that?

The momentous and scandalous discovery of evolution can only be matched in the field of psychology by the discovery of the unconscious. All of the other responses here do not come close in importance to those massive upheavals you listed.

Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

#69

Post by canjobear »

AlbertCory wrote: post #50
nickff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His response is informative, and should be read against what I believe to be a stronger case than the OP (and linked from it): https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/2019-letexier.pdf Some of the more damning parts: > "Of the students tested, 81% accurately figured out the experimenter’s hypothesis (that guards would be aggressive and that prisoners would revolt or comply), and 90% predicted that the guards would be “oppre…

>> 81% accurately figured out the experimenter’s hypothesis so what? Did they get a grade on their participation? I'd bet not. So why would they care what the hypothesis was? >> The experimenters intervened directly in the experiment, either to give precise instructions, to recall the purposes of the experiment, or to set a general direction. PZ says they said, "We noticed this morning that you weren't really, you kn…

Zimbardo’s claim was “normal people could behave in pathological ways even without the external pressure of an experimenter-authority.”

In fact what the experiment showed is that people can behave in pathological ways when Phil Zimbardo coaxes them into it.

Re: The Stanford Prison Experiment was hugely influential. We learned it was a fraud (2018)

#70

Post by surge »

beenBoutIT wrote: post #51
adastra22 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read it. He basically doesn’t address any of the criticism, he just reframes to claim that the experiment was actually testing something different than what we’ve all understood it to be. Maybe that is true. In which case he would be a terrible scientist rather than a fraudulent one. Even so, that still makes the legacy of the SPE false, and one has to wonder why he never corrected the record in the nearly 50…

For the record, Zimbardo is a fraudulent pseudo scientist. Even in a best case scenario Zimbardo's work doesn't qualify as any sort of actual science.

This is purely anecdotal, but he looks the stereotype of a villain and I always had a hard time taking him seriously because of it.

He literally looks like the devil in Rick and Morty. There's some other classic villains I'm sure are a more apt comparison but I can't think of any at the moment. https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Lucius_Needful

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