Selects: How the Stanford Prison Experiment Worked

The infamous Stanford Prison Experiment wasn't really much of an experiment as it turns out. It was more like a poorly thought out exercise conducted by a professor who didn't dot the i's and cross the t's. Listen in to this classic episode as Josh and Chuck give this experiment some harsh treatment of their own. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:03Speaker 02

  Hi, everybody. Chuck here. Hope you're having a great day. Hope you're having a great weekend. I'm thinking about you, each one of you individually. I'm thinking about you. I know where you live. I'm standing right behind you. Actually, I'm just kidding. But I hope you're doing well. This one goes back to July 5th, 2018. It's a good one. I think I picked this one because I had just recently seen the movie on the Stanford Prison Experiment. The movie is okay. It's not great. It's not bad. It's fine. The podcast episode was pretty good, from what I remember, though. But you should do both. If you've seen the movie, listened to the show, if you listen to the show, then give the movie a shot. It's got Billy Crudup. He's always awesome. And it's called How the Stanford

• 1:47Speaker 02

  Prison Experiment Worked, where friend becomes foe, foe becomes friend. What'll happen in the end? Listen in to find out.

• 2:00Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 2:10Josh Clark?

  Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and this is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And Jerry's over there, so why don't you pull up a chair, kick back and tell us about your problems, because this is psychology stuff.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  We should just call this episode "The Stanford Prison Experiment", AKA perhaps the hackiest experiment of all time, and it's really not an experiment, anyway.

• 2:37Josh Clark?

  No, but it's the most famous psychology experiment ever.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got kind of ticked off while I was researching this.

• 2:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you should, man.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Because I used to think it was cool, like, "Oh, man, what a cool experiment."

• 2:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, everybody's evil at its core, at the core.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, then I researched it and I was like, "This is a bunch of BS."

• 2:56Josh Clark?

  All of it.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  "This is one of the worst executed experiments I've ever heard of."

• 2:59Josh Clark?

  That is so funny, because I, while I was researching this, I was like, "I'm gonna have to keep it together, maybe at the end I can really go off or whatever."

• 3:06Speaker 02

  No, let's go off at the beginning.

• 3:08Josh Clark?

  That's great, man. Yeah.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  I watched the movie today, too.

• 3:11Josh Clark?

  The 2015 one?

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:13Josh Clark?

  How was it? How was Billy Crudup? Because I loved him in Almost Famous.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Uh, well, I'm a fan. He was good. But like, I don't know, the movie, A, was pretty sensationalized as far as the violence. Like, they showed a lot of straight-up physical violence in the movie, which supposedly didn't occur.

• 3:33Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  Like, beating them with billy clubs and hog-tying them and like, like, real violence.

• 3:40Josh Clark?

  Hollywood. Actually, these days, I should say Atlanta.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yollywood is what they call it.

• 3:47Josh Clark?

  Oh, there you go. Perfect. That's, that's perfect. That sounds like a Norman Reedus creation.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it might have been.

• 3:53Josh Clark?

  Shout out to Norman Reedus.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  And then, uh, what was I saying? Oh, I don't feel like it came down hard enough on, on this Yahoo, what was the guy's name?

• 4:07Josh Clark?

  Zimbardo.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, Zimbardo, for just crafting a really poor, doing a very poor job at crafting a supposedly scientific experiment.

• 4:17Josh Clark?

  No, he was like the driving force behind that movie getting made. Apparently, he'd been trying to get a movie made in America.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  He seems to be a pretty shameless self-promoter.

• 4:25Josh Clark?

  For decades, yes.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:26Josh Clark?

  It's not a good quality in a social psychologist.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  No.

• 4:29Josh Clark?

  So, we're gonna see, I guess we'll let the cat out of the bag, but we shall see that, um...

• 4:37Josh Clark?

  The Stanford Prison Experiment, one of the most famous experiments in the annals of psychology. It's not an experiment at all.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  No.

• 4:48Josh Clark?

  It's findings are wide open to interpretation.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:52Josh Clark?

  And it was conducted by a showman, basically.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a red flag when you don't publish your findings in a medical journal. You publish them in New York, was it New York Magazine?

• 5:04Josh Clark?

  New York Times Magazine.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  Oy.

• 5:06Josh Clark?

  Hodgman's rag.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Well, a great rag, but that's not the place to go publish scientific findings.

• 5:13Josh Clark?

  No, peer reviewed journals are.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:15Josh Clark?

  And they circumvented that.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, but for very good reasons.

• 5:19Josh Clark?

  All right, so let's, let's talk about the outline. So let's go back to the beginning, right?

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, back to the year of my birth, 1971.

• 5:26Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  In Stanford, at Stanford University.

• 5:30Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  Which is what, Palo Alto?

• 5:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Go, uh.

• 5:35Josh Clark?

  Fighting sequoias.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  What is there?

• 5:38Josh Clark?

  They have like a big old sequoia on their logo. I think it's like a, and then they have a, a sequoia with its fists up? Or is that a leprechaun? Oh, that's Notre Dame I'm thinking of.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  I, I do feel like it has something to do with trees.

• 5:53Josh Clark?

  Chuck's looking it up, everybody, so let me stall.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  It is a tree, the Stanford Tree.

• 5:57Josh Clark?

  Well, I don't know what the mascot is, but there's definitely a tree associated as like a.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  No, I looked it up, the Stanford Tree.

• 6:02Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay, cool.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  And the first question is, why is it a tree?

• 6:05Josh Clark?

  Uh huh. Well, what's the answer?

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I'm sure it's just because of where it is in California, but that doesn't answer the real question, which is why would you have a tree?

• 6:16Josh Clark?

  Right, Philip Zimbardo's sitting there like, quit stalling, get to the, get to the heckling.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  He's still around.

• 6:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he is. So, um.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  All right, we're at Stanford, it's 1971.

• 6:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we're actually in the basement of one of the buildings at Stanford, Stanford University. I think like Campbell Hall or something like that. And I think August of 1971, there were, um, 24 young men, almost all of them, I think one of them was Asian American. And, um, they are doing something pretty bizarre in this basement in August of 1971. They've been divided into two groups, guards and prisoners.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  Supposedly average kids.

• 6:57Josh Clark?

  Right, and they are, um.

• 7:00Josh Clark?

  Acting out this basically role-playing game of guards versus prisoners.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  For fifteen bucks a day.

• 7:08Josh Clark?

  In a simulated prison in the basement of this hall at Stanford University.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, which would be about ninety-three dollars today, funded by the US Office of Naval Research.

• 7:19Josh Clark?

  Is that right? So it would be ninety-three bucks a day?

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:22Josh Clark?

  And it was originally gonna be two weeks, so I'm sure some of these guys were like, "Heck, yeah."

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I kinda forgot what it was like to be a college student. That'd be, you know, what? Between twelve and fourteen hundred bucks, starting off your summer.

• 7:37Josh Clark?

  It'd be about thirteen, thirteen-hundred-and-two dollars if my quick math is correct.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Good scratch.

• 7:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  For a twenty-one-year-old.

• 7:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, two weeks on summer break.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  That's right. So you were divided into two lots, like you said. They asked people, supposedly, what you wanted to be, unless this was purely a movie creation. And I did try and look up and try and find out the differences.

• 8:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  But they supposedly asked them, and most everyone said, or in fact, everyone said prisoner. And one of the reactions from who ended up being the bad guard, the guy said, they asked him why, and he's like, "'Cause nobody likes guards."

• 8:17Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  He's like, "Why would anyone wanna be a guard?"

• 8:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  "'Cause they thought, 'We'll just be prisoners, 'cause they just will lay around and smoke cigarettes.'"

• 8:24Josh Clark?

  Right. So we'll, and we'll kinda unpack what that suggests later on.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 8:29Josh Clark?

  Okay, so you've got these guys, and they're down here for this experiment. And so coming at it from the way, this is the popular interpretation of what happened at the Stanford Prison Experiment, okay?

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:42Josh Clark?

  You've got, you've got twelve guards and twelve prisoners.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  The prisoners had been arrested, by the way.

• 8:48Josh Clark?

  By the real Palo Alto Police.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, they weren't told when, but like, the real cops came by, arrested each one of them. For, you know, a variety of crimes.

• 8:57Josh Clark?

  Booked them at the Palo Alto Police Station and then transported them to the jail, the fake jail in, at Stanford.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, they call it the Stanford County Jail, and they did a legit job. They put up signs, they had these rooms decked out like jail cells. They had a hole. They did a really believable job of making this seem like a prison environment at least.

• 9:22Josh Clark?

  Right. So you've got these prisoners who've been delivered. You've got these guards who are waiting there for them. And as far as Zimbardo's ever said, these guards were told, "You have to protect the prison, and everything else is up to you. The only rule is there's no physical punishment. We're just here to observe."

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, like here's your uniforms, here's your sunglasses.

• 9:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and then the prisoners were booked in with, wearing smocks.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:52Josh Clark?

  No shoes, no underwear.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, naked under the smocks.

• 9:56Josh Clark?

  Chained at the ankles. And then they wore like those stocking cap do-rags.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  They had a panty on their head.

• 10:02Josh Clark?

  To simulate, to simulate their having their head shaved.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Right. And, you know, this is the early 70s, so most of them had these big afros and long hair and stuff under these panties.

• 10:17Josh Clark?

  Right. So this is, like at first, everything's pretty normal. The guards don't quite know what to do. They're a little timid. The prisoners apparently relished this immediately and started, like finding where the guards' boundaries were. And they started to band together. And there was actually, I think on day two, the turnover from day one to two, there was a prisoner riot.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, they, like you said, they were sort of laughing at first, and I think we didn't mention too, and this is, will end up being very, very problematic, and the first sign that he didn't do a good job, Zimbardo actually acted as the superintendent of the prison, involved himself in his own experiment, and had one of, he had some graduate assistants that were assisting in the program, they acted as parole board, and one of them was the warden.

• 11:12Josh Clark?

  That was, yeah, undergrad, actually.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Oh, were they undergrad assistants?

• 11:16Josh Clark?

  Well, the warden, Jaffe, his last name was Jaffe, he was an undergrad at the time, and actually, he had come up with the experiment on his own.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  Oh, he was the guy, huh?

• 11:25Josh Clark?

  Uh huh, and then Zimbardo was like, this is a really good idea, let's do this for real.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Imagine the press.

• 11:30Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  So, yeah, like you said, it escalated pretty quickly, after kind of laughing at first, these guards got into their roles, to say the least, and really kind of started being jerks in quick order, and after the prisoners were like, hey, this is kind of funny, like, you're being, you're not being very cool.

• 11:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  And they were, you know, kind of smacked down, and, you know, made to do things like pushups and jumping jacks, and they would withhold food, and eventually, they would like, take their beds away from them and stuff, like, it just got worse and worse, and there was, I think, like you said, on day two, a, an uprising.

• 12:10Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  They got together, threw the cots off their beds, and threw the bed frames against the door, and wouldn't let them in.

• 12:17Josh Clark?

  Right, so, there was a prisoner riot.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:20Josh Clark?

  That's pretty significant, right? And what's equally significant is that the guards, by the second day, started to show signs of like, real cruelty.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:30Josh Clark?

  Toward the prisoners, they started treating them very poorly, they started engaging in basically acts of torture, like waking them up randomly in the middle of the night, making them get up, like you said, pushups, which is interpreted as physical punishment.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:45Josh Clark?

  Because, again, you couldn't, you couldn't hit them with the rubber hose, you couldn't hit them with the baton, you couldn't punch them, but if you make somebody do a bunch of pushups, that's physical punishment, too.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:56Josh Clark?

  And it was within the bounds, apparently.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, they were referred to only by their prison numbers. They would never say their names. They were made to memorize everyone else's prison number and like, they would line them up and tell them to repeat their numbers for like, an hour. If they didn't do it fast enough and then in reverse order, uh, they would get punishment. They would do the, kind of the classic moves of holding one responsible for the punishment of others.

• 13:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's a, that's a big one.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Like if you didn't make your bed good enough, then no one could go to sleep, stuff like that.

• 13:24Josh Clark?

  The guards also innovated, um, the, uh, carrots here or there too. They actually made one cell, like a good cell. Like, they put a bed in it.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:33Josh Clark?

  With like bedding. Um, if you were in that cell, you were eligible for like, good meals.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:39Josh Clark?

  Better than what the other prisoners had. And there were room for three inmates in there at a time. And so, it instilled this sense of competition and, and, um, skullduggery, I guess backstabbery, among the prisoners.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Backstabbery.

• 13:54Josh Clark?

  To curry favor with the guards, like by informing on the other ones.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:58Josh Clark?

  So that you could get a chance to be in like, the nice cell.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think even before that, like when they went to do the, when they went to stage the uprising, I don't think, there were three rooms of three, and I think six of them, two of the rooms participated, and one of the rooms did not. And, uh, because not all the guys, uh, you know, not all the prisoners like rebelled as much. Some of them just kind of went along with it.

• 14:21Josh Clark?

  Interestingly, some of the guards did not descend into cruelty.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:26Josh Clark?

  They, actually, some of them did like favors, went out of their way to be nice to the prisoners. But, and, um, the grabster who wrote this article points out very significantly, they didn't stand up to the cruel guards or officially object to their, their behavior.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:42Josh Clark?

  They went along with it, but then...

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Cause they thought they had to.

• 14:45Josh Clark?

  In their own, right, in their own way, they, they did what they could to retain their humanity. So there are two huge points. And one of them, there's one among the guards and one among the prisoners. And the one among the prisoners comes 36 hours after the beginning of the, um, of the experiment. And this prisoner, his name, it would later be revealed, was Douglas Corpi. Um, he had an emotional breakdown, a nervous breakdown. Thirty-six hours after this, this, this experiment starts. One of the prisoners, it becomes so emotionally involved in this simulated prison. At this cruelty, the simulated supposedly cruelty of the guards that he had a nervous breakdown.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Well.

• 15:29Josh Clark?

  And had to be, had to be removed from the, um, the experiment. And this is like, this is Zimbardo's, this is the official line for the Stanford prison experiment.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Oh, so we're still playing along?

• 15:38Josh Clark?

  Right, and has been for decades.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, he also said that, uh, one of them broke out in a psychosomatic rash. There was, um, all manner of, uh, of various levels of psychological breakdowns happening.

• 15:52Josh Clark?

  On the other side, the, the big star among the guards was a guy named John Wayne, who you referenced earlier.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, his name was, uh, Dave Eschelman.

• 16:01Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  And he was the one who, he was the ringleader. He's the one that came out as the most brutal guard of them all. And all the other guards kind of fell in line behind him and took their cues from him.

• 16:13Josh Clark?

  So this whole thing's going on, this is crazy town, this place in, in six days, six days, this thing descends into chaos.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Supposed to be two weeks.

• 16:21Josh Clark?

  Yes, there was, there was, um, rumors that there was going to be a breakout and so they moved the experiment. Um, there were, uh, that, that guy, uh, Douglas Corpi, who had a nervous breakdown, ended up getting put into the hole. Um, this broom closet.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:37Josh Clark?

  For, uh, I think overnight and was finally released because the, the, um, researchers, the, the actually stepped in and said, you should probably let them out. Um, there was, it was just utter chaos. And then eventually, um, Philip Zimbardo's girlfriend at the time, a, a woman named Christine Mas- Maslock.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, his wife-to-be.

• 16:58Josh Clark?

  Um, oh, she married him, huh?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, still married.

• 17:00Josh Clark?

  Um, so she came and just dropped in to see how things were going and was so outraged at what she saw that she was like, "You, you're so far beyond the line, you have to stop this now." Like, "This is, this has descended into chaos, you can't do this. These people are treating these, these prisoners horribly, like, how are you letting this go on?"

• 17:21Speaker 02

  And he went.

• 17:22Josh Clark?

  Fine. And so the next day, he canceled the experiment. Again, after six days, and it was scheduled to go on for two weeks. And so he comes out, tells the world in this New York Times Magazine, "Guys, if I took you, if I took you, Josh, and I took you, Chuck, and put you as guard and prisoner in even a simulated prison, and put a smock on Josh, and took his underwear off, and put a stocking on his head, and gave Chuck a baton and some glasses, Chuck would beat Josh up. And Josh would probably have his spirit broken and have a nervous breakdown. It's in everybody. Evil is in everybody.

• 18:05Josh Clark?

  Crumbling at the first sign of adversity is in everybody. We're all just pathetic weaklings. Stanford Prison Experiment." And he ran off and said, "I'm famous."

• 18:15Speaker 02

  All right. That's a great setup. So we'll take a break here and come back and talk a little bit about the, more about the experiment and the realities of it right after this.

• 18:35Speaker 04

  First thought is like, wow, how are we gonna do all this?

• 18:37Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fans' experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 18:56Speaker 04

  It was gonna rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 19:04Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 19:10Speaker 05

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 19:19Speaker 05

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  What the fans' experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 19:27Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 19:31Speaker 06

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 19:35Speaker 02

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• 20:22Josh Clark?

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• 21:50Josh Clark?

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• 22:14Speaker 02

  All right, so you've got John Wayne in there. I don't think we mentioned that he took on the persona of the prison boss in Cool Hand Luke.

• 22:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  He did a fake southern accent and everything and dove right into this role. If you talk to Dave Eschman today, he will say he's very much on record as saying, "I'm not some jerk, and I didn't get off on being sadistic." He said, "I wanted to do what they paid me $15 a day to do, which was to be a prison guard and to treat these guys poorly."

• 22:47Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  And so, you know, he said, "I did some drama in high school, and I literally acted this part as well as I could."

• 22:54Josh Clark?

  That was, I felt was expected and wanted from me.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Right, and I put on this fake southern accent, and if you like ask friends and family today, they would laugh at this because I'm really not this guy at all.

• 23:06Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Because he really comes off as a bit of a villain in this movie, for sure.

• 23:10Josh Clark?

  Well, he perpetrated real cruelty on other people. And we'll get to that later.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  He said he feels bad about it, too.

• 23:18Josh Clark?

  And he should.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:20Josh Clark?

  Because the other people actually did suffer under this guy's leadership as the ringleader of the mean guards.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:28Josh Clark?

  Like, they wore pink on Wednesday, it was terrible everywhere, right? So, he really should feel bad, and apparently he does. I saw that all over the place, too, that he feels bad for it. But the point is, is that he has said... Like, this didn't happen organically. Like, I, I, I was, I was, I felt encouraged to, to play this role.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:51Josh Clark?

  That's a big deal because the findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment say, if you take some people and say, "You're a guard."

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Give them some power and you will turn evil.

• 24:00Josh Clark?

  They will turn evil within a day.

• 24:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:03Josh Clark?

  A day, they said about this guy. And this guy's like, "No, I was just, like you said, doing my job, but they're paying me 15 bucks a day for."

• 24:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:11Josh Clark?

  Let's put that one to the side.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Right, put a pin in that.

• 24:13Josh Clark?

  Let's go visit with Douglas Corpi, who was the prisoner who, in 36 short hours of this simulated prison experiment, lost his marbles and had a nervous breakdown and had to go home. Right? One of the other two pillars of the findings, that people are either evil or easily crumble in the face of adversity from the Stanford Prison Experiment. And again, this is how this thing's been taught for like 50 years, okay?

• 24:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Corpi comes out and says, "I was faking that. And I put on a big act so I could get out of there because it sucked. And I didn't want to be there anymore."

• 24:49Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  So I fake like I was, and he, he, like, one of his quotes was, uh, I don't have it here, but he basically said like, "Any trained clinician would have been able to see right through this." Like, when I hear the tapes years later, it's like, "I'm not an actor." I wasn't, like, apparently the John Wayne guy at least had been in like high school plays.

• 25:09Josh Clark?

  And college too, I think.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he was like, "I, I was not an actor." And it was so clear to me, looking back at these tapes, that I was faking it.

• 25:16Josh Clark?

  Faking a nervous breakdown.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, faking a nervous breakdown to get out of there.

• 25:19Josh Clark?

  Right. So, the reason why he said later that he did fake this nervous breakdown is because he took the job because he thought he'd just be laying around, like you said, smoking cigarettes, being a prisoner.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:31Josh Clark?

  And he would get to study for the GRE. He was about to enter grad school.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  I didn't see that.

• 25:35Josh Clark?

  Well, they said, "No, you can't have your books."

• 25:37Speaker 02

  No, they didn't give him anything.

• 25:38Josh Clark?

  And this guy was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, this is day one." He's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, like, I need those books, I'm taking the GRE." Basically leaving here after two weeks and going to take the test. Like, "I've gotta spend this two weeks studying." They're like, "You can't have your books." So he quickly saw that the only way out was to fake this nervous breakdown.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  And Billy Crudup went in there and said, "Why is everyone saying whoa, whoa, whoa? Only I can say whoa, whoa, whoa."

• 26:03Josh Clark?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we've kind of poo-pooed the two major findings from this study already.

• 26:11Josh Clark?

  So that's a huge deal, right? Because, again, the idea is that if you put people, any random people, remember, these are just average, like, middle-class white kids.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Which is another problem.

• 26:22Josh Clark?

  Right. If you put, if you put any, well, you know, 1971, that means everybody.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:26Josh Clark?

  That's the whole world, right? If you put anybody in the world in this situation, they're going to either turn evil or lose their marbles. So, um, those are the two findings. That's what everybody took it as at first. It later came out, no, this guy was acting, this guy was faking, so what else do we have then? Well, we have this idea that Zimbardo insinuated himself as part of the experiment, and that actually created the findings from the Stanford Prison Experiment.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  So should we put a pin in that? Or you want to talk about that now?

• 27:00Josh Clark?

  No, no, I want to go, I want to go where you want to go.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  All right, let's put a pin in that then and talk about, a little bit more about what went on that week.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  They had everything from visitation, like, you could write a letter to your family or girlfriend or whoever you wanted to come visit you, to ask for visitation rights, and the family came in, and they did, they came in and visited for an hour, and there were, in some cases, parents were like, "I don't know about this, this is, like, this is, seems like a really weird thing."

• 27:30Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  And Zimbardo would be like, "Oh, no, it's totally fine," like, you know, they're-

• 27:33Josh Clark?

  I'm a psychologist.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, they want to be here, like, ask them, and the kids, you know, they did say that they wanted to stay.

• 27:42Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Which is, which is important.

• 27:46Josh Clark?

  Okay, so what else is important is-

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Like, no one in the visiting hour, I don't think, were like, "Get me out of here."

• 27:52Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  They're all like, "No, this is all part of, part of the act."

• 27:55Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Essentially.

• 27:56Josh Clark?

  All right.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  They had parole hearings inside the course of a week somehow. They said that if they, they could be released if they would forfeit the money, and this is after, I don't know how many of the six days, but they could- Not get paid and be paroled if they went in front of the parole board. They went in front of the parole board, some of them did. And most of the prisoners said that they would give up their money, in fact. And the parole members, like, like I said, they were the graduate assistants. They even had one former prisoner, this guy that was a 15-year.

• 28:32Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm, San Quentin.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, inmate, 15 or 17-year inmate on the board. That I guess Zimbardo, I want to call him Zamboni.

• 28:40Josh Clark?

  So he actually was a friend of Jaffe's, the guy who originally actually conceived of this experiment as an undergrad. So he brought him in on it.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Right, so he was on the parole board. And he was kind of one of the ones, at least in the film version, that was kind of saying like, "No, this is like how it is, like you should keep it going."

• 28:58Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  But I don't know how much of that was dramatized.

• 29:00Josh Clark?

  I don't either. That's one of the problems with this is, you know, so much of the documentation has been not released over the years. And when it does get released, it contradicts the official line. And it's very tough to separate truth from fiction, especially when you introduce a Hollywood movie into the whole thing just to drive those nails in the coffin, too.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so.

• 29:22Josh Clark?

  Of reality, in fact.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  There's been a lot of, in the years since, a lot of complaints that a lot of these, you know, kids were screaming, "I want to go home, I want to go home." And for his part, Zimbardo said, in the contract, it says, "I want to exit the experiment." Is the official line to say, and they could have gone home. And he was like, "But you hear, no one ever said, 'I want to exit the experiment.'" They would say, "I want my mommy," or "I'm going crazy," or "My God, please stop this, please stop this." But they never said those exact words.

• 29:53Josh Clark?

  The safe phrase.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  The safe, yeah, the safe phrase. But it turns out that's bunk, too, right?

• 29:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it turns out that if you look at the contract that they had, that he's referencing, that say the rules and everything in the agreement, there's no safe word to be mentioned. Certainly doesn't say if you say, "I want to quit the experiment," you get released from the experiment.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  So he's just flat out lying about that, then?

• 30:14Josh Clark?

  That's, from what I understand, yes.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  And what article was this that you sent?

• 30:18Josh Clark?

  There's a really good takedown in Medium called. The lifespan of a lie.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a good one.

• 30:26Josh Clark?

  And it's based on, that title's based on a, I think, a documentary by a, documentary or book by a, yeah, French filmmaker, which, who titled his version, The Birth of a Lie. And it's basically about how the Stanford Prison Experiment was just basically, it was bunk from the get-go, which we'll kind of pick that apart in a little bit. And that, it just fascinatingly has been perpetuated over, again, basically 50 years. It just entered the cultural zeitgeist and just stayed, like an infection.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  All right, some other things that happened to make it realistic. They brought in a lawyer, when parents asked for one, and played along, like it was real. They brought in a chaplain, who came in to speak to prisoners, and he played along with it, too.

• 31:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  They basically did everything that you would think would happen in a real prison on a slightly scaled-down level.

• 31:28Josh Clark?

  Right, but the upshot of all of this is Zimbardo saying like, "Do you see what's going on here, everybody?"

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:35Josh Clark?

  Like, "I just put some guys in, like, nine guys in at a time, or 12 guys as guards, 12 guys as prisoners, and their parents came for visiting hours. A lawyer came. That's how real the simulated prison became in people's minds. Just imagine what a real prison's like, right?" So, and he was saying they could have left at any time if they just said the safe word, and no one ever said the safe word. There is some evidence that these people were basically kept there against their will. Especially after Douglas Corpi basically faked his emotional breakdown, and then was thrown into a broom closet in retaliation for it.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:19Josh Clark?

  That, he should have, very, very clearly should have been left, or allowed to leave. And to even be led to think that you couldn't leave, which is apparently the idea that spread throughout the prisoners.

• 32:32Josh Clark?

  That would be like keeping someone against their will.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he did leave, but was supposed to, agreed to come back supposedly. To like, play a different role as a prisoner who like, maybe escaped and came back, I think.

• 32:45Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  But didn't come back.

• 32:47Josh Clark?

  Right, and I think five people were released early before the, the whole experiment was called up. All prisoners, no guards, left the experiment, which is telling.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, and they were working in shifts though, which is important.

• 33:00Josh Clark?

  Okay, that is a big one too. Um, but, but if you consider that no one asked to be a guard, they all asked to be prisoners, but then none of the guards left the experiment.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:09Josh Clark?

  That's, to me, that's interesting on its face, right?

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 33:12Josh Clark?

  There's something to that. But, um, there, the, the whole thing, just kind of falling apart after Zimbardo's girlfriend, um, at the time came.

• 33:25Josh Clark?

  The idea that up to this point, these people had engaged in this fantasy, and thought that they couldn't leave when they really could.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:33Josh Clark?

  That's controversial in and of itself.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 33:35Josh Clark?

  Because again, there's evidence that they were led to believe they, they couldn't leave. And that's different, that changes things entirely.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:45Josh Clark?

  So you want to take another break and then pick this apart some more?

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 33:49Josh Clark?

  Kind of fun.

• 34:01Speaker 02

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• 34:37Josh Clark?

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• 35:13Josh Clark?

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• 35:30Josh Clark?

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• 35:52Josh Clark?

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• 36:47Josh Clark?

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• 37:04Speaker 02

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• 37:23Speaker 02

  All right, the final takedown.

• 37:24Josh Clark?

  I'm waiting for Philip Zimbardo to release a book about our Jack Hammer episode.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  That's fine. I would read it. All right, so where are we here? Basically, we're at the point where he has ended the experiment, and now we're dealing with the fallout since 1971 and how this should be viewed.

• 37:46Josh Clark?

  One of the big things that came out of that French book, The Birth of a Lie, is the filmmaker unearthed a recording that was, I don't know where he found it, but he found it and released the transcript of it that clearly has, if not Zimbardo, at least Jaffe, definitely Jaffe, coaching the guards.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, to be more brutal.

• 38:14Josh Clark?

  Right, be a tough guard. Just think of how the pigs do it and do it like that, I think is what the quote was, right?

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, when the whole idea of this thing is to try and prove that without any influence, this is what happens.

• 38:27Josh Clark?

  Right, so there's a couple of things that happened. Methodologically, there's a lot of things that happened the moment they started coaching those guards. Number one, they took any organicness out of their behavior. They were then doing what they thought they were expected to do, like John Wayne.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 38:43Josh Clark?

  Who just went over the top is what it was. And then number two, they made them co-experimenters.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:50Josh Clark?

  Like, the whole thing was supposed to be guards and prisoners.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  And we're gonna watch.

• 38:53Josh Clark?

  As test subjects.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:55Josh Clark?

  Or participants. And when you coach the, the guards, you're, they're co-experimenters now. Now the experiment's entirely on the, on the prisoners. Which, you can say, okay, well then those findings still worked. Well, that gets thrown out when you base the whole thing on a guy who is faking.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:11Josh Clark?

  Right? But, but you, you make the guards co-experimenters and you just completely take out any objectivity from this experiment. That's problem one with the methodology.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  Well, and the fact, we already mentioned that one of, one of the researchers was a warden and Zam, uh, I keep wanting to call him Zambrano.

• 39:29Josh Clark?

  That's fine, go ahead. Zimbardo.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Zamboni, himself was the superintendent. Like, the minute he decided to do that, like, I looked up, I think he was like in his late 30s when he did this. How did he not, like, was he that bad?

• 39:43Josh Clark?

  No.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  At doing his job? How did he not know, like, wait a minute, this will taint the experiment?

• 39:47Josh Clark?

  Do you want to talk about why the people think that he was so?

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:52Josh Clark?

  Okay, so, he was a, uh, he wasn't, I think still is, a social activist, for sure. And he had decided, um, and I can't really disagree with him, that prisons were brutal places, where brutality lived, and that they were inherently brutal. And so if you take somebody and put them into this place, you're doing a real disservice to humanity by, by throwing somebody in a brutal place, that you know is brutal.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  So his aim was to get reform to happen?

• 40:19Josh Clark?

  Yes. From the outset.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I can't fault that, but you can't call it a scientific experiment either.

• 40:25Josh Clark?

  No. And it actually supposedly backfired as well, because one interpretation of his findings is that it's all or nothing with prisons. Prisons are inherently brutal, uh, or you can't have them. So either you have prisons and you have brutal prisons, or you have no prisons. And so faced with that choice and with rising crime rates in the 70s, um, a lot of people doubled down on getting tough and made prisons even worse and built more prisons and said, "T, yes, we're not even gonna try to, like, reform you anymore, we're just gonna send you to these brutal places that are inherently brutal and there's nothing we can do about it." So it would have, it would have backfired in that sense.

• 41:07Josh Clark?

  But in, in, in the idea that he was doing something with the best interests of his fellow people at heart, again, like you said, it's, it's tough to fault him for that. He just really, really gave social psychology a black eye.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, so one of the other things he did wrong, and this one I just can't figure out either, is he didn't have a control group. And one of his, um, this guy wasn't in the experiment, but one of his colleagues came by one day and was like, you know, what's your control?

• 41:39Josh Clark?

  What's your independent variable?

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he was like, "What?"

• 41:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  He's like, "I don't have one."

• 41:45Josh Clark?

  So if you, if you run a, an experiment of any sort, Grabster uses a great analogy where if you're trying to figure out what the effects of radiation are on tomatoes, you pick a bunch of tomatoes, you weigh them, you check them for color, you make sure that they're identical to another set of tomatoes. So you have two sets of basically identical tomatoes. One you irradiate, one you do not, and after a set amount of time, you go back and see what the differences are. And then you can say probably that when you irradiate tomatoes, these are the effects, and the effects are the differences between the two. Same thing with the prison experiment, right?

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, what would you have here? Two different, uh, cell blocks? And one that literally isn't coached and completely left alone?

• 42:28Josh Clark?

  That's what I would have done, for sure.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  And then one where you're saying, "Hey, be brutal and

• 42:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  we'll see if everyone falls into these roles."

• 42:35Josh Clark?

  Exactly. That, that would have been great. And actually, some researchers in 2001-

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, they did.

• 42:40Josh Clark?

  They did exactly that. They basically ran the experiment with just that control group you suggested. It was called the BBC Prison Study.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, Haslam and Riker?

• 42:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and basically, they did the same thing. They, they, they did not do any coaching, they didn't do any intervention. They did the, the thing exactly like you're supposed to, or like Zimbardo should have from the outset. And, um, they found that, again, they made the control group to the original Stanford Prison Experiment, they found that the exact opposite happened. The, the prisoners stayed banded together, the guards were totally in disarray and disorganized, the brutality never emerged, and there wasn't any violence, from what I understand.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, and this is where it gets really scummy, if you ask me. Zimbardo found out about this, and supposedly Haslam and Riker said they discovered he was privately writing editors- To keep them from getting published and claiming that they were fraudulent.

• 43:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, in the journal that they they released their findings in, he wrote in an appendage to their their article and said, these are, just don't even listen to these guys. I'm Philip Zimbardo.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Man.

• 43:51Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, I thought that was pretty scummy, too, if he did that. So you've got, methodologically, there's even more problems, too. If, in the, in the original newspaper advertisement, Chuck, he said.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  Prison Experiment.

• 44:06Josh Clark?

  Prison Experiment, everybody sign up.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a problem in and of itself. They shouldn't have known what they were doing.

• 44:11Josh Clark?

  No, exactly, until they showed up, right? So you're gonna get a big, wide swath of people. And then, once they find out what the experiment is, maybe they'll say, no, thanks, or whatever. But this was like, attracting, a 2007 follow-up study found narcissistic, hostile, overly aggressive authoritarian types, like flies to honey.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, or the opposite.

• 44:36Josh Clark?

  Well, that seems to be the case in this case.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, which was, in fact, one of them was a liberal activist.

• 44:42Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Who kind of purposely went in there because he thought maybe these findings could be used one day for prison reform.

• 44:49Josh Clark?

  Well, I think also, most of the, what I got from Jaffe coaching the people to say, like, think about what the pigs would do, and then do that, because we really gotta show them how brutal prisons are. I think everybody who showed up, basically, was against prisons. But whether you're against prisons or for them, you were automatically tainted before you even showed up for the interview.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:13Josh Clark?

  Because they wrote prison experiment in the ad. So from the outset, there was bias. There was no control group. It attracted a biased cross-section of people.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Zimbardo participated.

• 45:25Josh Clark?

  He was a participant. And that actually, Chuck, led to the second set of findings, that Zimbardo had influenced this and become a participant himself. And here's the current interpretation of all of it, okay? This seems to be the current du jour interpretation of the Stanford Prison Experiment.

• 45:48Josh Clark?

  Not that people are inherently cruel.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:51Josh Clark?

  And inherently will just crumble in the face of authority, although that might still stand. But that people will be, are capable of cruelty if they're recruited by an authority figure.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 46:05Josh Clark?

  The second set, and there's actually been three sets of interpretations. The second set was that Zimbardo inserted himself and that it actually demonstrated what's called situationist theory.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's basically that external circumstances are the drivers of human behavior.

• 46:23Josh Clark?

  Right, so the point was not that people are inherently cruel on an individual level.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  But the situation that they're put in, they will quickly find those roles.

• 46:32Josh Clark?

  If there's a power structure above them.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 46:35Josh Clark?

  That is, that has normalized this and is expecting them to fulfill those roles. And this really tied in with, you know, this is 1971, people were still really trying to figure out what the heck had just happened with the Nazis. It was only like 25, 26 years before.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:52Josh Clark?

  So this idea that this banality of evil, this made perfect sense in that, in that respect, right? There is a bureaucracy that had normalized evil and you were just following orders.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 47:04Josh Clark?

  That was the second interpretation of the Stanford Prison Experiment.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, and not just the Nazis, but everything like the Vietnam War, which was, I mean, this was 1971.

• 47:15Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  And like the My Lé massacre and, you know, I was just following orders, like this tied in, this has his fingers in a lot of relevant politics of the day.

• 47:25Josh Clark?

  Right, so apparently it also tied in really well to Attica and Zimbardo must have just couldn't believe his, his good fortune that there was a The bloodiest. Prison riot in American history.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:37Josh Clark?

  Happened like a couple of weeks after he made the news in the New York Times Magazine with this journal art, or this article that he wrote, right?

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:44Josh Clark?

  But that actually played into it too, because apparently following orders, a lot of guards just fired blindly into the tear gas smoke of this prison riot and killed tons of unarmed prisoners and hostages. So.

• 47:59Josh Clark?

  So Zimbardo's like, okay, that's fine. However, we're gonna interpret this, I'm cool with that. The third one, I'm not quite sure that he would be cool with. The current one.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Which is bad science.

• 48:12Josh Clark?

  Uh, I think, so what I saw is that a lot of social psychologists said, we've known this is bad science all along, but the findings were really interesting and worthwhile. So we didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The third one is that, that Zimbardo inserted himself. And what this, what this, this study really showed was that people will engage in acts of cruelty if there is a, a figure of authority recruiting them to what they think is a righteous cause. And in this case, it was Zimbardo making the guards co-experimenters by coaching them to be cruel.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:49Josh Clark?

  And in, in the name of prison reform ultimately, when they showed the world what happens when you put normal people in a prison situation.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is what, uh, the John Wayne guy very much has said all his life since then is that this is what they, I thought they wanted was for me to be a bad guard.

• 49:07Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  So we could prove, uh, ultimately that prisons need reform.

• 49:12Josh Clark?

  And that, that is why he's still complicit, cause he's still engaged in these acts of genuine cruelty against the, the prisoners in the study. And that's why he should still feel bad and still does feel bad. But he did it because he was recruited in the name of this righteous cause by somebody who was in authority.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  So is this being taught this way in classes now?

• 49:33Josh Clark?

  I don't, I think that they, especially once it came out that Zimbardo and at the very least his warden, a co-experimenter was, was coaching them to do this. And that the organic cruelty is just totally out the window. I, I think they don't know what to do with it right now. They're trying to figure out like how to get these findings across or what to make of them.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  Because one, uh, one of these quotes from the article you sent, uh, the guy said, "I don't think it's scientific fraud in the typical sense. It was never considered to be scientific. It's typically represented in classrooms as a demonstration, uh, not an experiment. And is a notorious case of ethical malfeasance."

• 50:11Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  So that's almost a fourth takeaway is that it's an example of how to not do a study correctly.

• 50:17Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  Which is interesting.

• 50:20Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, methodologically inserting yourself, like lying about the findings later on, or misinterpreting the results, or using spin. It's, yeah, there's a lot here.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  But it was approved by the Stanford Human Rights Subjects Review Committee at the time. Those were Zimbardo's experiments who he presented this to. And they're, you know, he still says that it was ethical.

• 50:44Josh Clark?

  Well, it was at the time. Under the guidelines, it was ethical. But then after, they changed the guidelines.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, you couldn't do this today.

• 50:51Josh Clark?

  No.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Or at least not with, like he did it.

• 50:54Josh Clark?

  So I did, you remember the very brief Psychology is Nut series?

• 50:58Speaker 02

  I watched that.

• 50:59Josh Clark?

  I did one on the Stanford Prison Experiment.

• 51:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I watched it today.

• 51:02Josh Clark?

  Did you? What'd you think?

• 51:03Speaker 02

  It was good.

• 51:04Josh Clark?

  Thanks, man.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  Cute little background.

• 51:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I thought so, too. And let's see, you got anything else?

• 51:11Speaker 02

  No, I mean, boy, I thought we were pretty scathing, but...

• 51:13Josh Clark?

  We were. This was like vaping level scathing. This is way worse than vaping. I'm sure the vapors are like, "God, they were really hard on that guy."

• 51:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, the movie, you know, the documentary is probably a little more accurate, but the movie wasn't bad.

• 51:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  I mean, it's not great.

• 51:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 51:30Speaker 02

  But it was okay. It felt like a movie of the week.

• 51:33Josh Clark?

  Gotcha. It's an airplane movie?

• 51:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, watch it on your next flight. That's my recommendation.

• 51:38Josh Clark?

  Thanks, buddy. Well, if you want to know more about the Stanford Prison Experiment, type those words in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com and it'll bring up this Grabster article. It's inside the Grabster. It's time for listener mail.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  I'm gonna call this beautiful landscaping. "Hey, guys, I spent the last two years fixing up the yard in our house in Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania."

• 52:02Josh Clark?

  Oh, that sounds like a pleasant place.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is. My husband actually introduced me to your show a few years back. And thank God he did, because I've literally listened to you for hours and hours while working in the yard.

• 52:12Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 52:12Speaker 02

  It was a huge undertaking. I have a more flexible work schedule than he does, so I volunteered to absorb most of the responsibility, although he did a lot of heavy lifting, too. I enjoyed the show so much, I stopped allowing myself to listen to it any other time. You were only allowed during yard work. This made me much more ready to get outside and get into it. You guys were with me while I carried literally tons of redstone uphill in buckets, hauling rocks for a firing landing, planted...

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Pecysandra, ferns, and hostas, and the rockiest soil I've ever had to work with, and just clearing away overgrowth.

• 52:47Josh Clark?

  It sounds like Tonya Harding training for the Olympics in that one montage.

• 52:51Speaker 02

  Which it turned out included a fair amount of poison ivy. During it all, I learned about tiny adorable little creature called a tardigrade, the business of head transplants, the hookworm, her favorite episode, and some haunting information I cannot unhear such as you provided in the bullfighting and drowning episodes. You're always very entertaining, full of information. Even when I think it's boring, you make it fun. There were times you had me LOLing in my backyard, alone and covered in dirt and sweat like a crazy person. Attached are some pictures of the progress, all from your climate-controlled studio. That is from Sharon Proshinsky. Sharon, you did a great job. That is one beautiful yard you got going.

• 53:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  It is lovely.

• 53:34Josh Clark?

  It is. Nice work. We're glad we could be there with you to help you get up that hill.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, and down the hill, and then back up the hill, and then back down the hill.

• 53:42Josh Clark?

  That's right, and then back up again. If you want to get in touch with us to let us know how we've helped you out, we love hearing that kind of stuff. If you're Philip Zombardo, we expect to hear from your lawyer. And in the meantime, you can hang out with us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com, where you can find all of our social links. And you can also send us an email to [email protected].

• 54:06Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, MyHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 54:22Josh Clark?

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• 55:07Josh Clark?

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• 55:19Speaker 02

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• 55:51Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.