The Experiment So Disturbing It Was Shut Down Early 😳

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]In August 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo recruited 24 mentally healthy college students for a two-week experiment. They were randomly divided into two groups, guards and prisoners.

[00:00:14]The basement of Stanford University's psychology building was converted into a mock prison. Within 24 hours, the guards began acting cruy. Without any instruction, without any prompt, they began psychologically tormenting the prisoners. Another had to be removed after just 36 hours, screaming and in tears. Zimbardo himself became so absorbed in the role of prison superintendent that he stopped seeing his participants as students. On the sixth day, his graduate student visited the experiment. She was horrified. He shut it down immediately. The experiment was designed to last 2 weeks. It lasted 6 days. Several participants still dream about it. The guards rarely speak about what they did.