In 1971, a Stanford professor named Philip Zimbardo had an idea for a unique psychological experiment. He decided to create a fake prison in a university building, and he recruited college students to act as guards and prisoners. The goal was to document the effects of life behind bars.

Maybe you’ve heard of this study before; it’s so famous that people just call it the “Stanford Prison Experiment”—you may have even discussed it in classes at school. The thing about the Stanford Prison Experiment is that it didn’t become well-known because it was successful. It got famous by turning into a disaster.

The study was supposed to run for two weeks, but it was called off after only six days when Professor Zimbardo realized that things had gotten out of hand. During the experiment, at least one student “prisoner” suffered something like a nervous breakdown. Many of the other “inmates” started to act in strange ways—more like real criminals and less like college students. Some of the “guards” became downright abusive. Professor Zimbardo discovered himself acting more like a prison official than a professor.

When the experiment began, all of the guards and inmates were the same—they were ordinary college students. They weren’t crazy. They weren’t criminals. They didn’t appear to be unusual in any way. But when the researchers chose half of the students to be guards and others to be prisoners, they were essentially saying that some of them were better than others. And that’s when the trouble started.

According to an article published by Stanford in their Alumni magazine:

“Zimbardo encouraged the guards to think of themselves as actual guards in a real prison. He made clear that prisoners could not be physically harmed, but said the guards should try to create an atmosphere in which the prisoners felt ‘powerless.’”

“…For six days, half the study’s participants endured cruel and dehumanizing abuse at the hands of their peers. At various times, they were taunted, stripped naked, deprived of sleep and forced to use plastic buckets as toilets. Some of them rebelled violently; others became hysterical or withdrew into despair. As the situation descended into chaos, the researchers stood by and watched—until one of their colleagues finally spoke out.”

“Zimbardo says that ‘neither they nor we could have imagined’ that the guards would treat the prisoners so inhumanely. The Stanford Prison Experiment…provided lessons in how good people placed in adverse conditions can act barbarically.”

• If you had signed up for this experiment, would you have wanted to be a guard or a prisoner? Why? (Most of your students would probably prefer to be guards—they were the ones in control.)
• How do you think you would have reacted in either of those roles? (Answers will vary.)
• Why do you think the “guards” let their behavior get out of hand? Why do you think the “prisoners” took the abuse instead of quitting? Remember, although they were intimidated to think they were held captive, they weren’t real inmates—they could leave! (Maybe some of the “guards” enjoyed the power trip. Others were probably just trying to keep their “prisoners” in line. Some of the “inmates” may have genuinely felt trapped as the line between experiment and reality began to blur. Others might not have wanted to be labeled “quitters,” or didn’t want to give up the money [students were paid for participating in the experiment]).
• What can the experiment teach us about the dangers of treating some people like they’re better than others? (In only six days, the “prisoners” and “guards” in the Stanford Prison Experiment both began to act in alarming ways. The “guards” became abusive and controlling while the “prisoners” became frightened and helpless. When we act like some people are better than others in real life, we’re influencing them in similarly powerful and disturbing ways.)

Thankfully, none of us live inside a prison experiment. But playing favorites in real life is still a bad idea. All of us are created in the image of God, which means all human beings are equal at the deepest level. When we act like some individuals are better than others, the results are never good. That truth was recognized thousands of years before the Stanford Prison Experiment by the authors of the Bible. Let’s see what they wrote about playing favorites.

Additional resources:
The Menace Within