With so many reports of adolescent bullying in the media today, anti-bullying campaigns, charities, and new legislations, one experiment performed by Stanford University may prove that, when in positions of authority or assumed superiority, even “normal” people inevitably become abusers and psychological tormentors.
After viewing the Stanford Prison Experiment documentary, one may be left with sensibly grim, long-lasting impressions of humanity, as well as questions and objections that attempt to wind in desperation around those impressions, through them, anywhere but upon them: Can we not simply coexist regardless of positions of power or servility? There will always exist those with authority over the ones who serve; but is it second nature for some of us with authority to abuse power? Do those in power feel entitled to assert dominance? Are we genetically closer to canines than science previously calculated?
No matter the sex of those in a superior position, no matter the race or creed, there are always some who abuse it, while others do not. Stanford University does an incredible job showing how “normal” students assume an abusive role over powerless individuals to complete a study. Does the Stanford experiment apply to the world outside of their simulated prison walls? Is bullying second nature to those with authority or assumed superiority?
To summarize the Stanford Experiment: Psychology students from Stanford University conducted a study wherein students and doctors played the roles of prison guards, parole officers and wardens. Students who responded to an ad played the role of prison inmates. The study is most interesting as the psych students, completely versed in the laws of medical and workplace ethics, were the ones violating human rights as they, with unreasonable aggression via knowledge of psychological tactics, managed the playacted outcomes of their “prisoners’” lives. They essentially became bullies, one of the “guards” even being typed as a John Wayne character for the way he utilized a “wild west” method of controlling inmates.
From the Stanford Prison Experiment documentation from Stanford’s Dr. Phillip G. Zimbardo:
“There were three types of guards. First, there were tough but fair guards who followed prison rules. Second, there were “good guys” who did little favors for the prisoners and never punished them. And finally, about a third of the guards were hostile, arbitrary, and inventive in their forms of prisoner humiliation. These guards appeared to thoroughly enjoy the power they wielded, yet none of our preliminary personality tests were able to predict this behavior…” The study references the infamous Abu Ghraib incident of 2003, where American guards tormented Iraqi prisoners in sadistic ways while capturing it all on film.
Recent studies suggest that these “perpetrators of evil” may have possessed the trait within their personality from birth or early childhood. As more and more schools are plagued by incidents of adolescent bullying, harassing, and stalking via social media or other means, states are taking measures to apprehend offenders for psychiatric evaluations, either as a means to manage their behavior or perhaps gauge it to understand the answer to this question posed by Dr. Zimbardo of Stanford: “…How could intelligent, mentally healthy, “ordinary” men become perpetrators of evil so quickly?”
Candidates for inmates volunteered for the experiment, agreeing that they would be in a position of submission and vulnerability, yet these inmates rebelled on just the second day of the experiment, enraged at over-aggressive guards, powerless to the persuasion of their psychological torment. Some inmates wanted out immediately, as per the releases they’d signed; they had volunteered and quickly come to regret it. However, in reality, no one volunteers for the kind of punishment bullying entails. Adolescents in middle school cannot simply check out if the abuse gets too rough. The Stanford experiment suggests that bullying may be the result of a specific blend of conditions that, once met, inevitably alchemize into abuse.
In the case of Rebecca Sedwick, the 12 year-old Floridian middle school student who leaped to her death following ceaseless bullying from classmates, the sheriff nailed Sedwick’s two classmates with felony charges. When their photos and names went public and the story exploded through a series of news reports the media began speculating that such a case could enable authorities to halt adolescent bullies with other charges as well. While the case against Sedwick’s tormentors was dropped in November 2013, it begins an archive for the ages of the nature of adolescent bullying and its results in victims.
Capturing the behavior early could prevent an increase in “bad eggs” infiltrating the population given that social media and the cyber world are playgrounds for the overly aggressive and mentally ill. The article from the Huffington Post, “The Time Is Now for a Federal Anti-Bullying Law”, eloquently provides a case for why bullying must be extinguished in its earliest stages, not only to prevent the “bad eggs” from souring the good, but for the sake of the victims’ mental state now and in the future—bullying induces the pathological characteristics of child abuse in the victim:
“Just as we know the horrible effects child abuse can have on a child’s current and future well-being, emerging evidence shows us that bullying by peers can have many of the same results that persist long after the bullying has ended.”
The Stanford experiment, conducted in August of 1971, came to a premature end due to the sadistic acts of the guards and the psychological effects on inmates, with Dr. Zimbardo citing “ever more pornographic and degrading abuse of the prisoners.” He also stated that while the inmates were “happy the experiment was over” most of the guards were “upset” that the experiment lasted only six days instead of the scheduled fourteen.
For a more definitive look at the experiment and the psychology on each side of the equation as well as a startling juxtaposition between social bullying and the Stanford experiment, check out social psychologist Dr. Phillip Zimbardo’s New York Times Bestseller, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.”
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