|
Guard Hellmann: "Yes it has been more than an experiment. I had a chance at
testing people's capabilities, pushing them to the breaking point under the guise
of a correctional officer. It was not pleasant but I felt compelled out of my own fas-
cination to test their reactions. I was conducting experiments on my own on
many occasions."
29
Friday's Fade to Black 193
"The best thing about the experiment was that I seemed to be the catalyst
that brought out some startling results that gained interest from TV and the
press.... I'm sorry if I caused more trouble than you wanted—It was an experi-
ment of my own."
3 0
"The worst thing about the experiment was that so many people took me so
seriously and that I made them enemies. My words affected them, [the prisoners]
seemed to lose touch with the reality of the experiment."
31
A month after our study was terminated, this former guard was interviewed
along with former prisoner Clay-416, his nemesis. They interacted as part of a TV
documentary about our study on NBC's Chronolog, a forerunner of 60 Minutes. It
was titled, "819 Did a Bad Thing."
After Hellmann described his transformation into the guard role, Clay went
on the offensive, finally being able to add to the adage of that era, "What comes
around, goes around."
Hellmann: "Once you put a uniform on and are given a role, I mean, a job,
saying 'Your job is to keep these people in line,' then you're certainly not the same
person if you're in street clothes and in a different role. You really become that
person once you put on the khaki uniform, you put on the glasses, you take the
nightstick, and you act the part. That's your costume, and you have to act accord-
ingly when you put it on."
Clay:"It harms me, I mean harms, I mean in the present tense, it harms me."
Hellmann: "How did it harm you? How does it harm you? Just to think that
people can be like that?"
Clay: "Yeah. It let me in on some knowledge that I've never experienced first-
hand. I've read about it, I've read a lot about it. But I've never experienced it
first hand. I've never seen anyone turn that way. And I know that you're a nice
guy. You know? You understand?"
Hellmann: [Smiling and shaking his head] "You don't know that."
Clay: "I do, I do know that you're a nice guy. I don't get bad—"
Hellmann: "Then why do you hate me?"
Clay: "Because I know what you can turn into. I know what you're willing to
do if you say, 'Oh well, I'm not going to hurt anybody.' 'Oh well, it's a limited situa-
tion, or it's over in two weeks.' "
Hellmann: "Well, you in that position, what would you have done?"
Clay (slowly and carefully enunciating each word): I don't know. I can't tell
you that I know what I'd do."
Hellmann: "Would you—"
Clay (now talking over Hellmann): "I don't think, I don't believe, I would
have been as inventive as you. I don't think I would have applied as much imagina-
tion to what I was doing. Do you understand?"
Hellmann: "Yes, I—"
Clay [interrupting and seeming to enjoy his new sense of power]: "I think I
would have been a guard, I don't think it would have been such a masterpiece!"
194
The Lucifer Effect
Hellmann: "I didn't see where it was really harmful. It was degrading, and
that was part of my particular little experiment to see how I could, uh—"
Clay (in disbelief): "Your particular little experiment? Why don't you tell me
about that?"
Hellmann: "I was running little experiments of my own."
Clay: "Tell me about your little experiments. I'm curious."
Hellmann: "Okay, I wanted to see just what kind of verbal abuse that people
can take before they start objecting, before they start lashing back, under the cir-
cumstances. And it surprised me that no one said anything to stop me. No one
said, 'Jeez, you can't say those things to me, those things are sick.' Nobody said
that, they just accepted what I said. I said, 'Go tell that man to his face that he's
the scum of the earth," and they'd do it without question. They'd do push-ups
without question, they'd sit in the Hole, they'd abuse each other, and here they're
supposed to be together as a unit in jail, but here they're abusing each other be-
cause I requested them to and no one questioned my authority at all. And it really
shocked me. [His eyes get teary.] Why didn't people say something when I started
to abuse people? I started to get so profane, and still, people didn't say anything.
Why?"
Why indeed?
CHAPTER TEN
The SPE's Meaning and Messages:
The Alchemy of Character
Transformations
We're all guinea pigs in the laboratory of God .. .
Humanity is just a work in progress.
—Tennessee Williams, Camino Real (1953)
The Stanford Prison Experiment began as a simple demonstration of the effects
that a composite of situational variables has on the behavior of individuals role-
playing prisoners and guards in a simulated prison environment. For this ex-
ploratory investigation, we were not testing specific hypotheses but rather
assessing the extent to which the external features of an institutional setting
could override the internal dispositions of the actors in that environment. Good
dispositions were pitted against a bad situation.
However, over time, this experiment has emerged as a powerful illustration of
the potentially toxic impact of bad systems and bad situations in making good
people behave in pathological ways that are alien to their nature. The narrative
chronology of this study, which I have tried to re-create faithfully here, vividly re-
veals the extent to which ordinary, normal, healthy young men succumbed to, or
were seduced by, the social forces inherent in that behavioral context—as were I
and many of the other adults and professionals who came within its encompass-
ing boundaries. The line between Good and Evil, once thought to be impermeable,
proved instead to be quite permeable.
It is time now for us to review other evidence that we collected during the
course of our research. Many quantitative sources of information shed additional
light on what happened in that dark basement prison. Therefore, we must use all
the available evidence to extract the meanings that have emerged from this
unique experiment and to establish the ways in which humanity can be trans-
formed by power and by powerlessness. Underlying those meanings are signifi-
cant messages about the nature of human nature and the conditions that can
diminish or enrich it.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
