Category: After the experiment

In early 2023 I was interviewed for this podcast episode that was released January 2, 2024. I was able to share much of my experience.

The author of this article in American Psychologist magazine originally contacted me about a documentary he had planned.  When the funding fell through he interviewed me for this article that reveals many things about the experiment of which I was not aware.

This 2011 photo from an article in Stanford Magazine was taken when I was teaching inner-city students at Media College Preparatory High School in Oakland, California. I came to agree with the experiment’s conclusion that: people will take on the role-characteristics that society places upon them. I realized that many of my poor, gang-affected students…

I was interviewed in my home for this Court TV program produced in 2006. Click the image to view the program. The section on the Stanford Prison Experiments starts around 35:50.

In the summer of 2001 I was invited to the Stanford campus to be interviewed for a special edition of NBC’s Dateline. My father was also invited to participate. My interview began with a visit to the experiment’s location in the basement of the Stanford Psychology Department.  It was the first time I had been…

Not long after the experiment ended I was one of five participants invited to return to campus and be interviewed by the NBC news magazine, Chronolog.  This was the network’s short-lived version of a show similar to CBS’ 60 minutes. Since interviews used expensive film in those days, the producer asked me several questions before…

On August 21, 1971, the day after the experiment ended, an escape attempt resulted in six deaths at San Quentin Prison. On September 9, 1971 the Attica Prison Riot started. It ended on September 13 with the highest number of fatalities in the history of United States prison uprisings. At the time, Life Magazine had…

This story was published the day after the experiment ended. (Click the image to open it. Scroll down for the transcribed text)   Stanford ends a too-realistic experiment. Prison Test — An Ugly Success by Marshall Schwartz. A psychological experiment at Stanford University on the dynamics of prison life was terminated a week early yesterday…

The day the experiment ended the first stories of why it was stopped appeared. (Click the image to open it. Scroll down for the transcribed text)   Prison Experiment Too Realistic. Convicts Breakdown Want Out. by Myron Myers. The mock prison at Stanford University has been such a terrifying experience that three volunteer inmates have…

News coverage continued throughout the experiment. (Click image to open it.)

My family and I saved some newspaper clippings around the time of the experiment. This story was published the day after it started. (Click the image to open it. Scroll down for the transcribed text) Effects of prison being tested Nine young men are imprisoned in the basement of Stanford University’s Jordan Hall. They were…

The experiment lasted only six days instead of two weeks, and my pay stub shows I participated five days.