Issue 01, Test Subjects
The Trouble with Certainty
by Avigail Sachs
An op-ed on the wickedness of application.
LABORATORY SERIES. No.14. Stanford Prison Experiment application for approval of non-medical research involving human subjects, 1971. In an attempt to study the psychological effects of institutionalized power in the prison system, the experiment randomly assigned twenty-four male students (all of which were deemed the “most” healthy and stable) roles as prisoners and guards. Beginning with the arrest of participants in their homes without warning, prisoners were fingerprinted, booked and stripped of all personal possessions. Guards dressed in khaki uniforms and dark sunglasses monitored the prisoners behind bars in the basement of a Stanford University building. The simulation only lasted six days as prisoners were continually taunted, deprived of sleep and stripped naked. Photo Courtesy of the Stanford Prison Experiment
LABORATORY SERIES. No.14. Stanford Prison Experiment application for approval of non-medical research involving human subjects, 1971. In an attempt to study the psychological effects of institutionalized power in the prison system, the experiment randomly assigned twenty-four male students (all of which were deemed the “most” healthy and stable) roles as prisoners and guards. Beginning with the arrest of participants in their homes without warning, prisoners were fingerprinted, booked and stripped of all personal possessions. Guards dressed in khaki uniforms and dark sunglasses monitored the prisoners behind bars in the basement of a Stanford University building. The simulation only lasted six days as prisoners were continually taunted, deprived of sleep and stripped naked. Photo Courtesy of the Stanford Prison Experiment
