The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the most notorious in all of psychology. In 1971, a university professor named Philip Zimbardo recruited 24 volunteers, randomly assigned them roles as guards and prisoners and then locked half of them up in a basement corridor of Stanford University’s psychology department.
Though it had been intended to run for two weeks, the experiment was shut down after just six days when it became worryingly apparent just how willing those in guard uniforms were to psychologically torture those dressed as inmates. The incident caused huge upset and the fallout led American universities to tighten their ethical requirements around causing undue stress to study participants. However, if you read all that and thought, “Hey, that would make great television,” then congratulations, you might have a future as a Netflix executive!
