The Stanford Prison Experiment

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In 1971, a group of American college students volunteered to be either prisoners or guards in a mock prison in one of the most famous and controversial psychology experiments of recent times. The study, devised by Stanford University professor Philip Zimbardo, came to be known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Intended to last two weeks, it had to be suspended on the sixth day after those playing the guards subjected their peers, playing the prisoners, to cruel and dehumanising behaviour. Louise Hidalgo reports. Picture: prisoner with guard in the Stanford Prison Experiment (credit: Duke Downey/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)