Rhizome Experiment, Fall 2015

Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a two week psychological simulation designed by Philip Zimbardo in 1971 analyzing whether the behaviors and actions of prison guards evolved based on the surrounding environment or were situated within the individual before entering the environment. Twenty-four male college students participated in the experiment where they were randomly split into guards and prisoners in a mock prison in the basement of a Stanford building. Guards were only told not to inflict any physical harm, leaving them to make all other decisions. In order to make the simulation as real as possible, prisoners were picked up from their homes and taken to the mock police station where standard arrest procedures were followed. Additionally, guards were asked worked standard eight hour shifts. Within a few days, guards settled into their positions of power and began dehumanizing the prisoners. Prisoners were sexually humiliated, forced to do pushups, and verbally harassed. As harassment and abuse continued to escalade, the experiment was terminated after only six days. The guards embraced their new roles, losing a sense of reality. They shifted between the real, life as a college student, and virtual, life as a prison guard. As the guards realized and took advantage of their power, they shifted more and more into the virtual, taking control. In Zimbardo’s analysis, this experiment became support of the “’power situation’ in transforming ordinary people into brutes and serves as the archetypal ‘bad barrel’ paradigm” (Mastroinni 242). With the opportunity and environment to hold power, individuals in the simulation transformed, going against personal morals and behaviors. The simulation, or technology, allows for the change in behaviors and power dynamics, as explained by Zack in Guattari's theory of Simulation Spaces.

A similar shift between the virtual and real is witness in Full Battle Rattle as soldiers prepare to serve in Iraq. While the Stanford Prison Experiment observed the psychological behaviors of the simulation, Full Battle Rattle creates a setting to prepare soldiers for their future experiences in Iraq, the real. 

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