Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment
Le Texier reports a study of the Stanford Prison Experiment archives and interviews with 15 of its participants, and argues that the data question the experiment's scientific merit. The paper supports earlier criticisms such as demand characteristics and adds new ones: biased and incomplete data collection, the extent to which the study drew on an earlier experiment run by students in one of Zimbardo's classes, the fact that guards received precise instructions about treating the prisoners, that guards were not told they were subjects, and that participants were almost never fully immersed. It also discusses why textbook accounts have ignored these criticisms.
Le Texier reports a study of the Stanford Prison Experiment archives and interviews with 15 of its participants, and argues that the data question the experiment's scientific merit. The paper supports earlier criticisms such as demand characteristics and adds new ones: biased and incomplete data collection, the extent to which the study drew on an earlier experiment run by students in one of Zimbardo's classes, the fact that guards received precise instructions about treating the prisoners, that guards were not told they were subjects, and that participants were almost never fully immersed. It also discusses why textbook accounts have ignored these criticisms.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-25 via OpenAlex.
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Le Texier, T. (2019). Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment. American Psychologist, 74(7), 823-839. doi:10.1037/amp0000401