In the summer of 1971, Stanford Professor of Psychology, Philip Zimbardo, conducted an experiment to determine if cruelty amongst people of authority was because of the position or because of the people.

24 men were selected in randomly assigned roles of guard or prisoner.

The results of the experiment were shocking and are still being debated over 50 years later.

Learn more about the Stanford Prison Experiment, one of the most controversial

experiments ever conducted on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. A major question that psychologists have had is how it's possible for some people to act so cruelly when they're given positions of authority.

There have been countless examples of humans who otherwise were relatively normal, who acted with an absolute lack of humanity when placed in a role with authority over others.

A good example would be the guards who worked at concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

Those people engaged in unspeakable acts that they probably would never have engaged in otherwise.

A more recent example would be the guards at the Abu Ghraib prison, who tortured and

humiliated the people that they were assigned a guard.

There have been many other cases of teachers, police officers, guards, and others who have abused

their positions of authority to behave cruelly where they might otherwise never have.

The big question was if the people attracted to these positions were cruel to begin with, or

does the nature of the position make them cruel?

One psychologist wanted to conduct an experiment to see what the answer was.

Philip Zimbardo was a professor of psychology at Stanford University in the early 70s.

His idea was to create a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford Psychology

Department building.

He would recruit volunteers to take part in the experiment, and they would be randomly assigned the role of guard or prisoner.

The plan was to run the prison for two weeks to see how the assigned roles determine the behavior

of the volunteers.

Zimbardo placed a classified ad in a Palo Alto newspaper that read, quote,

...