All language subtitles for The.Stanford.Prison.Experiment.Unlocking.the.Truth.S01E03.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_NH

We good?

Are you guys gonna be
in the other room?

- I'm gonna be here.
- Okay.

I thought not to wear a tie.

I think it's better.

I mean, with
a jacket, it's semi-formal.

I have 100 ties,
really great ones.

Somebody said, "Men shouldn't
wear ties anymore."

And so I wore a tie
just as anti-conformity.

The last year,
the Stanford Prison Study

has received lots of criticism.

"The Stanford Prison Experiment
is a lie."

"Zimbardo is a fraud."

Zimbardo
was not behaving as a scientist.

He was behaving as someone
who wanted to shock the world.

He took a narrative

and he sold it hard and well.

Phil makes it into,
like, everybody became a sadist.

It wasn't even true
of the nine guards.

The experimenters
putting their hands

into the material.

Why did
you do that do those kids?

He really built
his career on this.

He basks in the limelight.

A stupid experiment.

There was obvious
manipulation of us.

Zimbardo was disingenuous.

He's an egotist.

Huckster.
Disco psychologist.

They don't really
like you. I think they like me.

Yo.

Salesman. Showbiz.

- It's Phil Zimbardo.
- Hustler.

The official
narrative was a lie.

None of their
criticisms hold up.

Zero.

Last June,
almost every day for a week,

a different critic appeared,

criticizing a different aspect
of the study.

My first
instinct was to go,

"Oh, I'm gonna debunk all this."

But then the longer
I spent with it,

there's something
really interesting

and important happening.

Have you ever
tried to reenact

the Stanford Prison Experiment
with your students?

Hands against the wall, please.

Please take off your shoes.

I want you to go a bit faster!

I have done
hour-long improvisations

of guards versus prisoners,

because essentially,
the Stanford Experiment

is arguably the most influential
piece of performance art

of the 20th century.

Zimbardo says it is the lesson
in what happens

when a situation imposes itself
on the people inside of it.

That's it. That's it.

But we can't
generalize about situations

any more than we can
generalize about people.

Any interactive circumstance
that involves multiple people

will result
in different experiences

of that same situation

and different understandings
of what happened.

I'm trying to tell you.

So, you shouldn't ever take

one person's opinion
as the truth.

It might be their truth,

but somebody else will have
a different truth.

So, this is when I had a,

the start of a little bit
of a mustache,

but pure, pure and clean.

And this is the start
of the mus--

No, this had to be in the '70s

'cause it's, it's
the long, long hair.

And this is a great picture.

I'm actually holding a sword.

I have an admiral's uniform.

This is my mother Margaret,
my father George.

So, this is, this is me.

That's the Bronx, 1950, I think.

I was born in 1933,
in the Depression,

which is a terrible time
to be born.

My parents were
second-generation Sicilian,

uneducated, and we grew up in
the South Bronx in the ghetto.

People lived in very close
proximity in small apartments.

It was a toxic environment.

When I was five years old,
I got double pneumonia

and whooping cough
at the same time.

I spent five months
in the hospital.

And there are no wonder drugs,
which means zero treatment.

And kids died all the time.

In the hospital,
time got distorted.

Every day was the same.
Every night was the same.

Time simply flowed on.

Life was boring.

The only thing we had
were comic books.

It's 1939 and Superman comics
had just come out.

And I can remember devouring it.

We would share the comic books
with each other,

and we'd just tell stories
about good versus evil.

I was able to create
alternative realities

that made our little bit of life
in the hospital

more interesting.

They can imprison my body,
but my mind is always free.

This is the power
of the human imagination,

the ultimate power on Earth.

That hospital experience,
that five months,

ingrained so much into my brain,

the forces of good
versus the forces of evil,

and that life could be
really short.

And so whatever time
you have on Earth,

whatever power you have,
you want to do good.

After the war,
social psychology was sometimes

referred to as
Holocaust psychology.

Many of the great scholars
in the discipline were obsessed

by the question of how
the Holocaust could happen.

How so many people
could be slaughtered,

not for anything they'd done,

but simply because
of who they were.

The human capacity for
inhumanity towards others

has dominated the field.

Two.

- Two.
- Two.

Two.

The subject denies
the evidence of his own eyes

and yields to group influence.

Asch found subjects went along
with the group

on 37% of the critical trials.

Solomon Asch,
who started work on conformity.

Stanley Milgram who did
the famous obedience studies.

Milgram argued that ordinary
people could do great harm.

People could inflict
electric shocks

on innocent victims.

Milgram opened the
door, and therefore it's easier

for psychologists like Zimbardo
to push it further.

Psychology
in the '60s was focused on

predicting individual behavior.

Without visual
cues, what shapes can a man

most easily distinguish
by feel alone?

This was the era
of personality testing,

personality traits,
individual differences.

I always challenged that,

saying we have to give
more attention to situations.

From my own experience
in the hospital,

it was the situation that forced
me to use my imagination

to triumph over that
hospital experience.

It was always the situation
which individuals

find themselves that
influenced their behavior.

The Stanford Prison Study
is really an extension

of that idea, showing the power
of the situation.

I got a lot of criticism
for the ethics of the study

and controlling the story
afterwards,

but it was really
a pure exploration,

what happens when you put
good people in a bad place?

At the time, I thought the study
had an immediate appeal

about power, about looking
into the dark places of prisons

that we never see,
that we can only imagine.

And it was really intended
to be used in college classes.

I never expected it would become
a "media darling"

that I could not ignore.

Oh, yeah.
No, again...

In the prison study,

we tried to put enough
into the experiment

to make the power of authority
feel real.

I had arranged with the chief
of police to do these arrests.

I had contacted the local
TV station and I told them,

"I'm gonna do this experiment.

I'll give you
an exclusive to it."

That made the study work,

changed the whole mindset
of the prisoners,

that "I'm under the control
of the authorities."

If the kids came and said,
"I'm here to begin the study,"

they were in charge.

So, the media arrests mean that
you are no longer in charge.

So, that started the study off
in high gear.

Can all of the actors
and our participants...

I thought
about the experiment

as an improvisational drama.

The basement yard,
it was the stage,

the actors were prisoners and
guards with different uniforms,

and the video camera
was the audience.

The important
thing to understand

about an experiment like this

is that there is an element
of theatrical artifice.

But that doesn't mean that
there's not also a level

of psychological reality;
and the two coexist.

As a participant
in the experiment,

what can you learn
about yourself

by really living that situation?

Enough.

Oh, my goodness.
Look at this here.

Hi, Doug.

Prisoner 8612.

This is unbelievable.

They took our clothes,
and they took our bed.

Big fan of your work.

Big fan of my work, huh?

Hey.

So, I'm just supposed
to act natural?

- You're Chuck?
- I am Chuck.

- I'm Doug.
- Doug. You were a...

Prisoner 8612.
What were you?

I was the guard.

Really?
You were a guard, huh?

Somebody had to be.

Hello, gentlemen.
Good morning.

Morning, girls!

- I'm Dave.
- There's the man.

Do you?

Didn't I tell you that
you could not laugh?

What we have here is
a failure to communicate.

You got it.

And you remember
some of my lines, too.

I remember
Cool Hand Luke.

- Oh, okay.
- And you are?

- I'm Jerry Shue, 5486.
- Okay. Okay.

And do you remember me?

- Yes, I do.
- Hi, Dave.

Dave. How are you, Clay?

I was 416.
I did the hunger strike.

Please be careful
with the wires and cords.

It's kind of cool
that they actually

went to all the trouble
to make this set.

Well, you'll see.

Okay.

Déjà vu.

- Isn't this incredible?
- Wow.

It's a pretty decent job.

Yeah. These doors
look pretty solid

compared to what I remember,
honestly.

Yeah. Oh, no, this is...

Were you the prisoner

who had a psychotic break
or something?

You were the screamer.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

In the experiment,
all I was thinking was,

"This is a really bad job."

What kind of job
can you not leave?

During this
experiment, at any time,

if you choose to stop
being a participant,

all you have to say is,

I want to or I choose to quit
this experiment.

But Doug Korpi didn't say that.

And so I was willing to
do whatever it took to get out.

Action.

Kids come back
and they try to escape.

You don't touch them
and go manhandle them.

You go, "Get in there."

Action.

What are you guys doing?

Oh, man.

Get in your cell.

Yeah, that was correct.

That was right.

Doug Korpi is
a strange bird.

Blah bluh blah.

He's a wise guy.

He's always cursing.

I don't about myself.

He loved that.

I up.

He's always
putting down the guards.

He's really
an unlikeable person,

unlikeable prisoner.

So, he constantly gets put
into solitary confinement.

He's banging on
the door, yelling and screaming.

I want out!

Guards really want
to put a pillow over his face

to shut him up.

He was the first
prisoner to break down

in 36 hours.

And he was ashamed of it
that he couldn't take it,

he couldn't handle it.

And then said, "I was faking it.
I was faking it to get out."

I don't have to say
I was faking.

You can hear me faking.

When you hear
my voiceover,

"I'm burning up inside,"
that's what I say.

I mean, who says that?

Action.

They won't let us out.

No, not that gleeful.
Try that again.

- Not that gleeful.
- Action.

They won't let us out.

That was good.

Alright, prisoners.
It's time to do some push-ups.

That was right.

The guards were around
as much as we were.

Action.

You guys get
that this is a job.

Like, this isn't an experiment.

Hole it is.

Dr. Zimbardo,
you're a liar!

No, this is torture!

No!

This is torture! Stop!
Let, let go!

Action.

No, this is torture!

- Action.
- Let go!

That was much more
how it happened.

So, Doug, I think
you were sitting.

No, no, it was against
that back wall,

like, just like you had.

No, the, the back wall.

That one, yeah.
And turn 90 degrees.

- This way?
- No, the other way.

That way, yes.

Okay, and sit down.

Okay. That's exactly how I was.
Okay, now I'm thinking,

"how am I gonna
do this?"

I wanted to be convincing,
and I wanted out.

And then I decided,
okay, ready... act.

I'm burning up
inside. Don't you know?

I want out! I want out!

I want out right now!

Right now!

Perfect.

- Well done.
- Yeah.

- Well done.
- Thank you. Thank you.

No, not bad.

Oh, thank you.

Sweet outfit.

- That's it.
- I like that.

I love that.

That was good.

Doug Korpi says,
"I was pretending to be upset.

I was just bored
with the experiment.

I wanted to get out."

But then some years
after the prison study,

I made another video with him,

in which Doug Korpi becomes
the prison psychologist

in San Francisco County Jail.

I'm a forensic
psychologist,

and I specialize
in risk analysis.

So, if you've killed once,
the judges ask me,

"Is he gonna kill again?"

What he hates is
he lost control of himself.

He says at some point,

"I wanted to find out more
about the mind."

And maybe it was just
in part this experiment

just furthered my, my craving
for control of my feelings.

I think that speaks to why
I went into psychology.

He chose
as his lifetime occupation

to be a prison psychologist.

What could be a more powerful
effect of being a participant

in an experiment that
it changes your entire life?

Phil would love to say
that I was inspired

by the Stanford Prison
Experiment

to become a psychologist.

You know, unconscious urges,
you know, maybe it's true.

But am I aware that the Stanford
Prison Experiment influenced me

in a significant--
no, I'm not aware of it.

It was only 36 hours.

And so, you leave it
up to the audience, you know,

which do you think
is the reality?

Alright, ladies.
It's time for a count.

You all get the idea?

You break the rules,
you get in the hole.

Now get back in your cells.

Let's go. Come on.

Let's go.

Good job.

To this day,
I'm angry at Zimbardo.

You're not?

No, I was not at all
angry with Zimbardo.

Zimbardo got caught up in the
same dynamic that everybody did.

And you got caught up in it?

I don't think anybody
in the experiment

did not get caught up in it.

We guards feel
somewhat deceived by...

Deceived.

...leading,
we were led to believe

that the experiment was
all about the prisoners.

We were just there to help them

get the results
they're looking for.

I could see
where the guards thought

that they were not subject
of our interest,

and they were simply
doing their duty.

But everybody fell
into their roles,

which speaks to the validity
of the experiment.

So, how much
direction was given

to the guards?

No, it was very little.

I mean, we have it,
we have it all on video.

Prisons always have rules.

I told the guards, your job is
to maintain law and order,

to be sure no prisoners escape.

Maybe we said
by all means necessary,

something generally vague,

but we made clear
you're not permitted

to use any physical force.

We can create boredom, we can
create a sense of frustration,

we can create
a sense of fear in them.

But I did not minimize
psychological force.

At the beginning, the guards,

they saw themselves
as nice guys.

And guards are supposed
to be mean guys.

But then the prisoners rebelled.

It's a rebellion!

And that was
the switch in the experiment.

After that, guards said,
"These are dangerous prisoners

and we have to show them
who's in control."

So, even though it was
kids in tiny rooms

with fake bars on the doors,
it created its own dynamic,

that is nothing was real
except in their minds.

All good? Alright.
Thank you.

There's the props.

Hey, Chase, let me
give a little words of advice

before we go out there.

Whoever you are in your
daily life, that's gone.

You are now the meanest prison
guard that has ever existed.

What's your backstory?

Think about that.

Where were you born?

What were your
childhood experiences?

Close your eyes.

Inhabit that person.

Now open your eyes.

Take these glasses...

this whistle...

...and this nightstick.

Who are you?

Dave. Guard Dave.

Guard Dave.

Alright.

Alright, girls, come on out!

Here in this hallway, I'm boss.

Let's do some sit-ups.
On the ground.

I want to hear them.
Yeah, louder!

Two, three...

And these are the worst
sit-ups I've ever seen.

Three, four...

Push-ups!

Turn them over.

You heard him.
Push-ups. Let's go.

Count them out.

Come on.

- Four, five.
- It ain't that hard.

2196 is such
a goodie little two shoes.

We all fall down.

To the ground.

Enough. Back in your cells.

Hey, guys,
you guys did great.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

You are rocking
those sideburns.

There you go. Hey, man.

It's funny to see
yourself channeled like that,

you know, it's really weird.

But the one thing you could do
is get a little louder,

you know, get in their face.

"You piece of junk!"
You know?

Alright.

You know, 'cause at,
even at your volume level

that there was that
sense of menace there

that should be intimidating.

I understood that what
they were trying to do

was some sort of exposé

about the evils of
the whole prison system.

So, I said,
"Well, I'm an actor."

I just got through watching
Cool Hand Luke, you know?

I can do a better job of this
than anybody.

I tried to be intimidating

to where I would really
instill some, some fear.

I would expect
one way for the guards

to minimize their guilt

is to say,
"I didn't create the evil.

I was simply following orders
of evil higher-ups."

Six, seven, eight, nine.

The problem is
there were no orders.

If anything, there is a day
where one of the guards

is sitting, smoking,

and the warden, David Jaffe,
says to him,

"You're getting paid to be
a guard. So act like a guard."

That was only to one guard

on one of the three shifts.

Hour after hour, day after day,
the guards came up with new ways

to humiliate and essentially
dominate their prisoners

on their own, I mean, adlibbing.

Prisoners must never
smoke in the cell.

Prisoners must
never smoke in the cell.

The guards
accepted that role

that they are part
of the correctional system

rather than they were students
making some money,

playing a game in a basement.

Didn't I tell you
that you could not laugh?

Maybe you didn't hear me right.

Dave Eshleman
and some of the other guards

who did cruel things
to the prisoners

in retrospect have to justify
what they did.

And the easiest justification
is, "It wasn't the real me.

I was playing the role in order
to make this experiment work."

You walk over here
like Frankenstein.

I love you, 2093.

Get up close.
Get up close.

I love you, 2093.

I love you, 2093.

You're smiling, 2093!

You get down here
and do 10 push-ups.

But the problem is
you're improvising on a stage

for 12 hours.

And the audience goes away
and you're still improvising.

Some of the worst things
that he did

happened in the middle
of the night

when he had no idea
that we were making videos,

we were observing him.

The videotaping was random,
and you couldn't tell.

And the question is how much
of what he did was improv?

And how much of it was
sadistic impulses in him

that came out to dominate
somebody else?

Did I tell you to stop?

One, two.

And we have
video evidence of his delight

in being a cruel,
sadistic guard.

What could have happened

had Dave Eshleman
not decided to ramp it up?

I guess what
would have happened,

what happens in real prisons,
nothing.

I would often use my
acting just to mess with people.

Professor Zimbardo made it
a point as to come up to me

and say, "You were fantastic."

And that's where I felt that

I had done what
he wanted me to do.

Dave Eshleman has
an excuse that works for him.

It wasn't for real.
This was artificial context.

And inside that, I was doing
an artificial thing,

and those don't count.

Mealtime.

Hot dog day.

We don't got all day.

I strongly
disagreed with that.

Eat that hot dog,
Prisoner 416.

Eat your hot dog.

No.

Do you know where
I'm gonna stick that hot dog

if you do not eat it?

It's getting crammed
up your ass.

All life is real life.

Hole it is.

Come on.

There is not
some special box

where what you do
doesn't have consequences.

That does not exist.

Way to follow
the rules, boys.

Finish eating.

Finish up them dogs, boys.

The magical question
is, you know,

when does acting stop
and reality start?

One of the troubling things
to me is if I really believed

I was doing something
for the greater good,

would I have been willing
to use my nightstick

and hit one of these guys
in the head?

When I think about it now,
I think no, there's no way

I would have crossed the line
and actually hit somebody.

Ethically,
it really doesn't matter

whether something's supposed
to be play pretend

or it's supposed to be
a scientific experiment,

or no, now where
this is the real world

but somebody else has made
the rules for the real world.

And so, my ethics are different.

That is all.

You know,
at some point

if I actually did some
psychological harm to people,

you know, that's not acting.

True.

I would feel very
guilty if I had, you know,

actually caused
anybody any harm.

Hole cam is rolling.

And action.

Prisoner 416
will stay in the hole

for the remainder of the night.

So, what'll it be?

Are you gonna keep
your blankets?

What'll it be?

Keep my blanket, sir.

Blanket.

Keep my blanket.

Give up my blanket.

I think majority rules, right?

Well, looks like Prisoner 416

is gonna stay another night
in the hole.

You hear that, Prisoner 416?

Hope you're comfy,
Prisoner 416.

But before you go,
I want you to thank Prisoner 416

like this for me.

Thank you, Prisoner 416.

Thank you, Prisoner 416.

Oh, yeah.

At that moment, I felt
no empathy whatsoever

for a fellow human being.

It's very difficult
to confront the fact

that I'm actually capable
of that type of evil.

Thank you, Prisoner 416.

Thank you,
Prisoner 416.

Thank you, Prisoner 416.

Basically, I just didn't
wanna make waves, and I thought,

well, he knows I'm his friend
since we had shared a cell.

I'll do this just
to keep things smooth.

416, it's okay.
We'll get you out.

No, no, no.

I did not say that.

Thank him and give a bang
on the door.

I could have said, "No,
I will not pound on that door."

Thank you, Prisoner 416.

But it was easier
to just go through the motions.

So...

So I respect
what he represented.

It's very interesting that
this is the pivotal memory

that has been with me
for my whole life.

I went through
the whole experiment

kind of as a spectator,
I thought,

and felt like I was above it
until I realized

that I had been manipulated

into pounding on the door
really hard.

And regardless
of Clay's reaction,

I was succumbing to
the pressures of the situation.

How does it feel to
watch that again for you, Chuck?

It was a good
detoxification about something

that's made me feel terrible
my whole life.

When I got into this experiment,
it was the first time

in my whole life where
I experienced having power.

And I was so angry that
somebody was resisting

after nobody had been
resisting for days

that I just walked by and I
slammed my, slammed my club

into the door just in a rage.

For me, that's
a surprising parallel,

because it's the one thing
I regretted ever since then.

This is where almost
everybody involved realized

that we had gone over a line.

Did I tell you
to stop barking?

As the stress
built up among the prisoners,

it also built up
among the staff.

I had done a lot of research
in my life,

but nothing that went beyond
an hour or something.

I had never been in a study
that went on hour after hour,

day after day.

So, it was just
physically exhausting.

You get down on all fours.

Pretend like you're a dog.

On the fifth day,

Christina,
who I was dating, came.

All fours.

We were observing
the night shift.

No!

Get in there.

One, two, three.

And she begins to tear up,

and then she simply says,

"I don't know who you've
become in this week.

And if this is the real you,

I don't think I want to continue
our relationship."

That was a smack in the face.
I said, "What?"

Multiple people say,

"He planned for his girlfriend
to show up and be upset."

It became the perfect excuse
to stop it.

Yeah, no, I don't think so.

Because here was somebody
I thought I knew.

Here was somebody I thought,
"This is the one."

And now, I'm not sure
I know this person.

This was so shocking

that I could have misjudged
somebody so badly.

My brain had been
functioning at this other level

of abstract intellectual.

I was wrapped in the role
of superintendent.

I was blinded
to what I had created.

It was like being awakened
from a nightmare.

I came to my senses and I said,
"Oh, my god, you're right.

I have to end the study
as soon as possible."

Do you feel any guilt?

Oh, sure.
I was overwhelmed with guilt.

You know, how could I not
have seen what she saw?

But there was no one
to apologize to

except, you know,
the god of science.

What about
the prisoners or the guards?

Did you ever feel like you
needed to apologize to them?

I made it explicit
in the debriefing

that, that I am sorry that I
allowed this to go on too long.

Six days is a long time
for a study.

But yes, I felt guilty,
I felt shame.

What would you say
to Zimbardo if he was here?

Way to go,.

60 Minutes calls me up
and I said, "Look, Phil,

I don't wanna have anything to
do with your experiment.

I'm done with it.

Leave me alone, Phil."

And he wouldn't leave me alone.

Didn't you change
your phone number

and he found it anyway
or something?

Yeah, did everything.

Wow.

I'd like to know how much he's
earned from this experiment.

Plenty.

Well, he certainly
achieved fame,

which is what he wanted.

Zimbardo is the only one

that's making money
and reputation.

This is his life.

This is what gives him stature.

Attica happening so quickly

after the experiment finished
was really a great opportunity

for psychologists to come
forward and say why it happened.

And then when
Abu Ghraib pops up...

Yeah.

You could just see
all the, the lessons

from the experiment
being misused.

It's marketing.

After the experiment ended,

I didn't think it would have
any lasting effect.

It was really intended to be
used in college classes.

But then three weeks
after I did the prison study,

there was Attica.

Prisoners went on a strike
and took over Attica Prison

in New York to get attention
of citizens

about some horrible conditions.

And this became
a big media event.

Now, the public want to know

about what's happening
in our prisons.

Attica is blood
on Rockefeller's hands!

And from
the Stanford Prison Experiment,

we had video footage,
giving viewers an eye

into the secret life
of what happens in a prison.

It was reality television taking
the audience into that scene.

And suddenly,
this little experiment,

which I was ready to put to bed

became national news,
national event.

The immediate impact

of the Stanford Prison
Experiment had waned.

I'm now doing research
on shyness,

on time perspective, and then...

The abuse of Iraqi
prisoners by some Americans.

These images were
released to the media,

and suddenly
there is an interest

in the prison experiment again.

The lawyer called me and said,
"Would you give testimony

to help for one of the prison
guards, Chip Frederick,

because the military wants
to give him 15 years

because it was
a disgrace to America."

- Can I interrupt you?
- Yeah.

Were you hesitant
to take on that role,

in defense of somebody
who committed those abuses?

Yeah, no,
because I told his lawyer

I'm giving a tentative maybe.

And so, I got to know him.

I spent hours talking to him,
checking his whole background.

And I said, "This is as good
as a guy gets."

He was a good father,
good husband.

I said, "Your Honor, this is an
extension of the prison study.

Chip Frederick never
would have done any of this

had he not been put
in that night shift.

Everybody who was
in that basement at night

was corrupted."

It's quite problematic to use

any artificial scenario
to explain real torture.

That seems, to me, cheap.

What Chip Frederick
did was awful,

deserved some punishment, but I
was able to reduce his sentence.

And then I decided I would
write a book about it.

I called it The Lucifer Effect:

Understanding How
Good People Turn Evil.

So really, each thing led to the
next thing throughout my life.

Zimbardo,
unlike a lot of professors,

is certainly not afraid
of the limelight.

I think that he likes
the publicity.

I think that this particular
demonstration, experiment

really made a name for him.

I've always associated
his name with salesman,

selling himself,
selling his project.

He knows where it's cool

and what will attract
media attention.

This is a savvy dude.

Some years after
the prison study, I thought,

I really know
so much psychology now.

I've been teaching it.
I've been writing about it.

But now I'm interested in giving
psychology away to the public.

Instead of being
limited to 500 kids

who are fortunate
to get into Stanford,

how do I get my message
to the world?

Well, how about if I was
on the television?

So, I helped create a series
called Discovering Psychology.

This was presenting the tableau
is psychology from A to Z.

What does the mind's eye see?

Many of our beliefs
we accept without question.

As soon as a baby is born,
an amazing process begins.

Behavior of animals
in their own natural habitat.

Can tests really tell us
how smart we are?

Psychology can be boring, and so
I would always think about,

how am I gonna transmit what
I have here into their brain

and make it memorable?

By manipulating your perception.

So, I had to get
their attention,

focus it like a juggler does.

Going back to that
hospital experience

where I was confined to my bed.

I had all these
wonderful thoughts

that had no place to go.

And here was a way
to share my ideas.

Phil has a kind
of a warmth about him,

and I think this comes across
even on TV,

because he will get tons
of letters from students

who have never met him and
have only seen him on screen.

He inspires joy
in so many people.

They have a real
affection for him.

And he's really kind of magical.

My most important achievement

is the Discovering Psychology
series,

because it was turning
the research into education

for the general public.

Let's look at it again,

only this time from
a different perspective.

By the way, Clay,
I apologize

for throwing you in that hole
52 years ago.

Look at what
we've gotten out of it.

Everlasting fame.

Yeah, I doubt we'd
still be talking about this

today if I hadn't been, you
know, we hadn't been such jerks.

It's all, you know,
absence of a design.

I mean, you thought
this was an acting job.

Yeah.

I don't think any of us
would have thought at that time

that it would ever become
what it has become.

I didn't, I certainly
didn't think so.

If Zimbardo had,
you know, not embraced it

as his life's work afterward,

then it certainly
wouldn't have, but...

When I...

And that,
that is another

extremely weird thing about it.

He just milked this
for 50 years.

Yeah.

Phil Zimbardo is right.

This was an incredibly important
experiment and event.

Look at us all here
50 years later.

I think it's a good lesson
that ordinary people

can easily do horrible things.

We all have these
capabilities within us.

And I think this experiment
was important

in, in putting that out there

whatever, whatever
its other deficits.

The concept I think
we can all identify with

is that, you know, good people
can do bad things

in the wrong circumstances.

I feel that this was not
a legitimate way to show that.

No.

Any of you guys want
to take a shot at us,

you know, while
we're standing here?

It's a, it's a little
late for that, Dave.

I said,
"Is anybody still angry?"

And what I've discovered, a lot
of people are angry at Zimbardo.

I would be.

I think almost every time
I read something written by him,

I got annoyed because
he was generalizing.

And that wasn't the way I felt.

I think human memory
is designed for people

to find a way to come to terms
with who they are

and what they've done.

I think everybody had decades to
develop a consistent narrative

that we can live with about what
happened and what we remembered.

We all have
our own agendas

that we bring
into the experiment.

I know I certainly did.

And I'm sure each one of you
did the same thing.

What has this
experience been like

for all of you?

I'm so happy
that Clay was not damaged

by anything I did.

That's great.

There was this one guy
during the experiment

that I thought was
a total.

And I met him, and he's not.

There you go.
The rehabilitation.

Me? I didn't do anything.

I thought about you
for 50 years

because I felt guilty
for pounding on the door.

Here I meet you, and
what the hell, you didn't even--

He wasn't even
paying attention.

I've been feeling guilty
about hitting my club

against the door.

Yeah, you probably
don't remember it.

You didn't care.

The Stanford
Prison Experiment proves

that if you get the right
combination of elements,

that story will run and run.

And the line between fact and
fiction is extremely unstable.

There's a saying in French,

"When the lie is beautiful,
it deserves to be true."

The Stanford Prison
Study should be seen

as a demonstration
where right and wrong,

reality and illusion
is all jumbled.

And it's up to the audience
to pull it apart.

Because the playwright just
gives you all of this material,

and you have to say
what's real, what's not,

what's true, what's false.

And maybe that's what
the enduring value

of the Stanford Prison Study is

it allows many different
interpretations

of the same events,

but maybe there's no such thing
as the same events.

The Stanford Prison Experiment
is what happened

in the minds
of 24 college students,

a handful of researchers
in a basement

at Stanford University in 1971.

No, no. This is torture!

Three, two.

Two, three, four.

Oh, my god.
Look at this.

Alright.

It fits!

Alright, everybody.
That's a wrap.

Hooray. Yay.

We're done.

Yeah,
it was such a pleasure.

We're done.

Yeah,
it was such a pleasure.

It was great. It's been great.

I'm exhausted.