Revisiting the Stanford prison experiment: could participant self-selection have led to the cruelty?
The authors investigated whether students who selectively volunteer for a study of prison life possess dispositions associated with behaving abusively. Students were recruited for a psychological study of prison life using a virtually identical newspaper ad as used in the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE; Haney, Banks & Zimbardo, 1973) or for a psychological study, an identical ad minus the words of prison life. Volunteers for the prison study scored significantly higher on measures of the abuse-related dispositions of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance and lower on empathy and altruism, two qualities inversely related to aggressive abuse. Although implications for the SPE remain a matter of conjecture, an interpretation in terms of person-situation interactionism rather than a strict situationist account is indicated by these findings. Implications for interpreting the abusiveness of American military guards at Abu Ghraib Prison also are discussed.
Carnahan
Thomas
T
Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101, USA.
McFarland
Sam
S
D000374:Aggression; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001318:Authoritarianism; D006801:Humans; D007629:Kentucky; D008257:Machiavellianism; D009289:Narcissism; D010551:Personality; D011330:Prisons; D012107:Research Design; D035842:Research Subjects / Q000523:psychology*; D015983:Selection Bias; D013714:Tennessee; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D014838:Volunteers