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2014 41: 195Teaching of PsychologyRichard A. Griggs

Coverage of the Stanford Prison Experiment in Introductory Psychology Textbooks  

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Topical Article

Coverage of the Stanford PrisonExperiment in IntroductoryPsychology Textbooks

Richard A. Griggs1

AbstractZimbardo’s 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), one of the most famous studies in psychology, is discussed in mostintroductory textbooks. The present study is concerned with the nature of this coverage, given that there have been myriadcriticisms, especially recently, of the SPE. These criticisms concern both Zimbardo’s situationist explanation of the outcomeand the study’s methodology, such as the presence of strong demand characteristics. Thirteen contemporary introductorytextbooks were analyzed for their coverage of the SPE and the ensuing criticisms of it. Eleven of these texts discussed the SPE,but only six even mentioned any of the criticisms. Possible explanations for such coverage and a plan to incorporate moreaccurate coverage within the discussion of research methods are offered.

KeywordsStanford Prison Experiment, introductory psychology, introductory textbook analysis

In a recent Psychology Today blog, Susan Krauss Whitbourne

stated that Zimbardo’s 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE)

is ‘‘depicted in movies, television, and of course all introduc-

tory psychology textbooks’’ (Whitbourne, 2013). Three months

later, Peter Gray, in a response to Whitbourne’s blog, pointed

out that the SPE is not depicted in all introductory texts because

it is not covered in his text and never has been (Gray, 2013). In

Whitbourne’s defense, she likely meant to say almost all or

something to that effect. Of interest here though is why Gray

decided not to include a discussion of Zimbardo’s SPE in his

text. After all, the SPE is definitely one of the most famous

experiments, and arguably the most famous experiment, in the

history of psychology (Gregoire, 2013). Haslam and Reicher

(2012) reported that the SPE website (www.prisonexp.org)

has an average of more than 7,000 visitors a day, and the

American Psychological Association reported in 2004 that the

SPE website had received 15 million unique page views in the

past 4 years and more than a million a week in the weeks fol-

lowing the expose of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American

soldiers in Abu Ghraib Prison (American Psychological Asso-

ciation, 2004). So, given the SPE’s notoriety and impact, why

didn’t Gray include the coverage of the SPE in his introduc-

tory text? The answer should be of interest to both psychology

teachers and other introductory textbook authors.

Gray (2013) reported that when writing the first edition of

his text (Gray, 1991), he not only carefully read the original

journal article on the SPE (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo,

1973b) but also a methodological critique of the experiment

by Banuazizi and Movahedi (1975). After reading both, he

decided to omit the SPE because he could not ‘‘in good con-

science’’ present the experiment with its usual situationist

interpretation—Zimbardo’s claim that due to the power of their

situational roles, the participating college students had truly

‘‘become’’ guards and prisoners. In brief, he decided that the

SPE was ‘‘poorly conceived and improperly interpreted.’’ As

it turns out, this decision appears to be justified in light of other,

more recent criticisms of both the SPE and the situationist

explanation of its outcome (e.g., Banyard, 2007; Haslam &

Reicher, 2012; Reicher & Haslam, 2006). I will next provide

more detail on both Gray’s rationale for his decision and these

newer criticisms.

Gray’s critique focused on the SPE being confounded by

strong demand characteristics. Banuazizi and Mohavedi

(1975) provided data that indicate that the SPE may have been

confounded in this manner. They presented students with a

questionnaire that included a brief description of the proce-

dures followed in the SPE and some open-ended questions to

determine their awareness of the experimental hypothesis and

their expectancies regarding the outcomes of the experiment.

Of the 150 students responding, a vast majority determined the

experiment’s hypothesis (80%) and predicted that the behavior

1 University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Richard A. Griggs, 4515 Breakwater Row West, Jacksonville, FL 32225,

USA.

Email: rgriggs@ufl.edu

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of the guards toward prisoners would be oppressive, hostile,

and so on (89.9%). Thus, it certainly seems plausible that

most of the participants in the SPE would have guessed how

Zimbardo and his colleagues wanted them to behave.

However, the participants, especially those who were

assigned to be guards, did not have to guess. Subsequent reve-

lations by Zimbardo himself about his active leadership in the

SPE (Zimbardo, 2007) disclosed that these participants were

largely told how they were supposed to behave (Banyard,

2007; Gray, 2013; Haslam & Reicher, 2012). This is because

in his role as prison superintendent, Zimbardo gave the guards

an orientation that seems to have provided clear guidance

about how they should behave. Zimbardo (2007) recounted

the following from this orientation:

We can create boredom. We can create a sense of frustration.

We can create fear in them, to some degree. We can create a

notion of the arbitrariness that governs their lives, which are

totally controlled by us, by the system, by you, me. . . . They’ll

have no privacy at all, there will be constant surveillance—

nothing they do will go unobserved. They will have no freedom

of action. They will be able to do nothing and say nothing that

we don’t permit. We’re going to take away their individuality in

various ways. . . . In general, what all this should create in them

is a sense of powerlessness. We have total power in the situa-

tion. They have none. (p. 55)

As Banyard (2007; see also Haslam & Reicher, 2003) pointed

out, notice the use of pronouns in this orientation. Zimbardo

aligns himself with the guards (‘‘we’’) and gives clear instruc-

tions for the hostile environment that ‘‘we’’ are going to create

for ‘‘them.’’ Thus, Zimbardo’s leadership seems to have legit-

imized oppression in the SPE. Banyard concludes that, ‘‘It is

not, as Zimbardo suggests, the guards who wrote their own

scripts on the blank canvas of the SPE, but Zimbardo who cre-

ates the script of terror’’ (p. 494).

In addition, Gray (2013) pointed out that when some of the

guards began abusing the prisoners, Zimbardo provided tacit

approval via his silence about the abusive behavior, thereby

confirming to these guards that they were behaving as they

should. But what about guards who were not behaving as

they should? Zimbardo instructed the prison Warden, David

Jaffe (one of Zimbardo’s student research associates), to chas-

tise such guards for not being more responsive to the job for

which they are getting paid (Zimbardo, 2007, p. 65) and to

make them more assertive (p. 81). For example, Warden Jaffe

told one such guard, ‘‘The guards have to know that every

guard has to be what we call a ‘tough guard.’ The success of

this experiment rides on the behavior of the guards to make

it seem as realistic as possible’’ (Zimbardo, 2007, p. 65). Thus,

not only was there tacit approval of the guards’ abusive beha-

vior, there was also direct instruction to the nonabusive guards

from the prison warden about how guards should act.

Gray (2013) also pointed out that Carlo Prescott, an African

American ex-convict who was the SPE’s chief consultant on

real prisons (Zimbardo 2007), claimed that he provided

Zimbardo and his colleagues with information that enabled

them to infuse the experiment with verisimilitude to real prison

life (Prescott, 2005). In his 2005 letter in the Stanford Daily

entitled ‘‘The lie of the Stanford Prison Experiment,’’ Prescott

expressed great regret for his involvement in the SPE and dis-

closed that it was he who came up with the abusive and humi-

liating behaviors displayed by the guards. Here is what he

wrote:

My opinion, based on my observations, was that Zimbardo

began with a preformed blockbuster conclusion and designed

an experiment to ‘prove’ that conclusion . . . ideas such as bags

being placed over the heads of prisoners, inmates being bound

together with chains and buckets being used in place of toilets

in their cells were all experiences of mine at the old ‘Spanish

Jail’ section of San Quentin and which I dutifully shared with

the Stanford Prison Experiment braintrust months before the

experiment started. To allege that all these carefully tested,

psychologically solid, upper-middle-class Caucasian ‘guards’

dreamed this up on their own is absurd. How can Zimbar-

do . . . express horror at the behavior of the ‘guards’ when they

were merely doing what Zimbardo and others, myself

included, encouraged them to do at the outset or frankly estab-

lished as ground rules?

Gray (2013; see Addendum, February 14, 2014) also provided

some remarks by John Mark, one of the guards in the SPE, that

mesh well with Prescott’s admissions. Mark’s comments

appeared in ‘‘The Menace Within’’ by Romesh Ratnesar in

the July/August 2011 issue of the Stanford Alumni magazine

(available at http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/

article/? article_id¼40741). Mark said:

I didn’t think it was ever meant to go the full two weeks. I think

Zimbardo wanted to create a dramatic crescendo, and then end

it as quickly as possible. I felt that throughout the experiment,

he knew what he wanted and then tried to shape the experi-

ment—by how it was constructed, and how it played out—to fit

the conclusion that he had already worked out. He wanted to be

able to say that college students, people from middle-class

backgrounds—people (sic) will turn on each other just because

they’re given a role and given power. Based on my experience,

and what I saw and what I felt, I think that was a real stretch.

I don’t think the actual events match up with the bold headline.

I never did, and I haven’t changed my opinion.

Given Mark’s comments, Prescott’s admissions, Zimbardo’s

description of his guard orientation along with his tacit

approval of the bad guards’ later abusive behavior, and the

prison warden’s talks with some of the nonabusive guards, it

certainly seems likely that the guards’ abusive behavior was

largely if not entirely a function of demand characteristics—

their doing what they believed they were supposed to do.

Given the strong demand characteristics of the SPE, it is

important to note that not all of the guards (only about a third

of them) became sadistic ‘‘bad guards.’’ Some were tough but

fair ‘‘by the book guards,’’ and others were ‘‘good guards’’

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(Zimbardo, 2007). This variance in guard behavior argues

against a strict situationist interpretation of the SPE results

because such an interpretation cannot account for the clear

individual differences observed among the participants. Erich

Fromm sums this up nicely in his book, The Anatomy of Human

Destructiveness:

The authors [of the SPE] believe it proves that the situation

alone can within a few days transform normal people into

abject, submissive individuals or into ruthless sadists. It seems

to me that the experiment proves, if anything, rather the con-

trary. If in spite of the whole spirit of this mock prison which,

according to the concept of the experiment was meant to be

degrading and humiliating (obviously the guards must have

caught on to this immediately), two thirds of the guards did not

commit sadistic acts for personal ‘‘kicks,’’ the experiment

seems rather to prove that one can not transform people so eas-

ily into sadists by providing them with the proper situation.

(1973, p. 81)

That Zimbardo and his research associates’ guidance may have

been critical to the SPE outcome is also supported by some

findings of a study of simulated prison environments conducted

in Australia by Lovibond, Mithiran, and Adams (1979). These

researchers found that changes in the experimental prison

regime produced dramatic changes in relations between guards

and prisoners. In both a more liberal prison condition in which

security was maintained in a manner that allowed prisoners

to retain their self-respect and in a participatory condition in

which prisoners were treated as individuals and included in

the decision-making process, the behavior of the guards and

prisoners was rather benign and very dissimilar from the dra-

matic behavioral outcomes observed in the SPE.

In addition, social psychologists, Alexander Haslam and

Stephen Reicher, in collaboration with the British Broadcast-

ing Corporation (BBC), recently conducted a re-creation of

the SPE but with ethical procedures that ensured that the study

would not harm participants. Filmed by the BBC and televised

in 2002, this study has become known as the BBC Prison

Study. Haslam and Reicher (2005, 2012; Reicher & Haslam,

2006) provide discussions of the study and its results, and

more information can be found at the BBC Prison Study web-

site, www.bbcprisonstudy.org. For our purposes, it is only

important to know that, unlike Zimbardo, Haslam and Reicher

took no leadership role in the study (in particular, they did not

instruct their guards to subjugate the prisoners to their will in

the way that Zimbardo did) and that the guards’ and prisoners’

behavior diverged markedly from that in the SPE, thereby

bolstering the argument that demand characteristics (and

Zimbardo’s leadership) were at least partially responsible for

the outcome of the SPE.

In brief, Haslam and Reicher concluded that people do not

automatically assume roles that are given to them, as is sug-

gested by Zimbardo’s situationist account of the SPE, and that

tyranny arises from a complex process in which group failure

and powerlessness lead group members to identify with

authoritarian regimes and their leaders (a process that was

short-circuited in the SPE because, from the outset, Zimbardo

encouraged identification with his own authoritarian leader-

ship). At the very least, the results of the BBC prison study

suggest that a simple situationist account of the SPE is prob-

ably just that, too simple.

Of course, it may be argued that the guards in the BBC

Prison Study failed to display the brutality of the SPE guards

because their behavior was filmed and would ultimately be

broadcast on television. Against this, Haslam and Reicher

(2012) note that toward the end of the study, once a group of

new guards had come to identify with their role, they proved

very willing to oppress prisoners. Indeed, here the regime that

was in ascendancy closely resembled that in the SPE. However,

the participants had arrived at that point because they believed

in the authoritarian regime they were implementing and not

because they were blindly conforming to role.

The SPE has also been criticized for the lack of generaliz-

ability and ecological validity (e.g., Fromm, 1973), the possi-

bility of participant selection bias (Carnahan & McFarland,

2007; McFarland & Carnahan, 2009), for breaching research

ethics (e.g., Savin, 1973), for providing no satisfactory account

of the individual differences observed (McGreal, 2013), and

for being a pseudoscientific experiment that is more aptly

described as Kafkaesque absurdist performance (Ribkoff,

2013). Nevertheless, Ribkoff (2013) points out that ‘‘ . . . despite

the obvious conceptual, methodological, and ethical flaws

in the SPE and the conclusions drawn from it by Zimbardo

et al., the experiment continues to be appealed to in social sci-

entific, pedagogical, political, legal, and popular circles as

proof of the ‘power of the situation’ . . . ’’ (p. 3).

Given all of these criticisms, it is hard to believe that an SPE

manuscript would have made it through the peer-review system

of a mainstream social psychology journal. Indeed, it is notable

that whereas many of the articles that are critical of the SPE

were published in leading peer-review journals (e.g., American

Psychologist, British Journal of Social Psychology, Cognition,

and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin), articles on

the SPE were not. Early articles on the SPE were published

in relatively ‘‘fringe’’ outlets, such as Society (Zimbardo,

1972), Naval Research Reviews (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo,

1973a), the International Journal of Criminology and Penol-

ogy (Haney et al., 1973b), and The New York Times Magazine

(Zimbardo, Haney, Banks, & Jaffe, 1973). It is also important

to note that these articles only provided a limited subset of the

SPE’s findings. As Zimbardo himself points out in The Lucifer

Effect (2007, p. 20), ‘‘the full story has never before been told.’’

The Present Study

These recent criticisms have raised additional doubts about

the wisdom of covering the SPE but have many contemporary

introductory psychology authors followed in Gray’s footsteps

and omitted such coverage or, more importantly, included a

discussion of these criticisms in their SPE coverage? Gray

made his decision over two decades ago based only on his

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evaluation of the original SPE article and Banuazizi and

Movahedi’s (1975) methodological critique, whereas authors

of contemporary introductory textbooks have a far more sub-

stantial literature on the SPE on which to base their decisions.

The purpose of the present study is to discover what these

authors have done with respect to the coverage of the SPE.

Griggs and Jackson (2013) provided objective analyses,

including length measures, of the most current editions of 13

full-length introductory texts published initially in the 2000s.

The latest copyright dates for these texts were all in the

2010s, ranging from 2011 to 2013, thereby making this set of

texts a good sample of contemporary introductory textbooks.

In addition, most of the critiques of the SPE and the articles

on the BBC prison study were published before those copyright

dates. Hence, the text authors would have had sufficient time to

consider them in making their decisions about how to treat the

SPE. All of these textbooks will be checked for inclusion of

SPE coverage and, if included, the nature and completeness

of the coverage, especially with respect to the inclusion of the

BBC Prison Study and critiques of the SPE.

In his classic book on teaching, McKeachie (2002) pointed

out that ‘‘research on teaching suggests that the major influ-

ence on what students learn is not the teaching method but

the textbook’’ (p. 14). Hence, because textbooks play a central

role in our students’ education and because introductory psy-

chology is the most popular course in psychology with an

estimated annual enrollment in the United States of 1.2 to

1.6 million students (Steuer & Ham, 2008) and may be the

only psychology course taken by most of these students, we

want our introductory textbooks to be as accurate as possible.

Introductory textbook authors have made their share of mis-

takes in the past (Steuer & Ham, 2008).1 For example, Harris

(1979), Samuelson (1980), and Paul and Blumenthal (1989)

criticized introductory textbook authors for misrepresenting

Watson and Rayner’s study of Little Albert (cf. Harris,

2011). Given that the SPE is one of the most famous studies

in psychology with far-reaching impact outside of psychol-

ogy, it is especially important that coverage of it in our texts

be accurate. The present study was designed to determine the

nature of this coverage.

Method

Copies of the 13 full-length introductory textbooks in the same

editions examined in Griggs and Jackson (2013) were col-

lected. Reference information for all 13 texts is included in the

references, and each reference is preceded by an asterisk.

To determine whether the coverage of the SPE was included

in a text, the name index was checked for Zimbardo and the

subject index was checked for Stanford Prison Experiment or

any possible variants, such as prison study. In addition, I con-

ducted a page-by-page check for any coverage that might not

have been indexed in the two chapters in which coverage might

be expected, the social psychology and research methods chap-

ters. If coverage was identified, the location of the coverage

was recorded and the extent of the coverage was measured in

terms of the number of paragraphs devoted to it. This measure

of length was used because the actual amount of text on a page

varies greatly among introductory texts. This variance is

caused by the number of columns of text, how extensive the art

program is, the font size employed, and so on. The number of

photographs of the SPE and their content were also recorded

for each text.

The nature of the coverage of the SPE was determined by

the subheading of the location in the text and the topic thread

of the coverage, and the completeness of coverage was deter-

mined by identifying what other SPE-related studies or cri-

tiques were cited and how they were presented. The cited

references were recorded for the purpose of determining which

SPE references were cited most often and whether references

for SPE critiques and the BBC Prison Study were included.

In addition, the conclusions drawn about the SPE’s outcome

were noted. For example, was the usual situationist explanation

given or was it tempered by the various critiques? Finally,

whether or not the SPE was related to the Iraqi prisoner abuse

at Abu Ghraib was noted.

Results

First, only 2 of the 13 texts did not include any discussion of

the SPE. It should be noted that one of these texts included

one sentence in a paragraph on the fundamental attribution

error that cited Haney and Zimbardo (2009) as support for the

possibility that situational factors, such as orders from their

superiors, may have influenced the abusive guards at Abu

Ghraib prison in Iraq. However, I decided that this one sen-

tence, comprising at best a tangential reference to the SPE, did

not constitute the coverage of the SPE. Coverage in the other

11 textbooks varied from 1 to 7 paragraphs, with mean and

median coverage of 3.6 and 4 paragraphs, respectively. Mean

and median coverage for the entire sample of 13 textbooks were

3.1 and 3 paragraphs, respectively, with a range of 0 to 7.2

To put these coverage statistics into perspective, Griggs

and Jackson (2013) found that this set of textbooks averaged

about 674 pages of text (with front and back matter excluded).

Thus, 3 or 4 paragraphs (less than one page) would not seem

to be extensive coverage, especially given the ‘‘classic’’ status

of the SPE. An additional way to put these coverage statistics

into perspective would be to compare them to the coverage

statistics of the other renowned social psychology classic

study, Milgram’s obedience experiments (Milgram, 1974).

Accordingly, I computed these statistics for the Milgram

study. All 13 texts covered Milgram’s obedience experiments,

and the coverage was much more extensive than that of the

SPE. Instead of paragraphs, it was more appropriate to use

pages to measure coverage. Mean and median coverage were

2.7 and 2.5 pages, respectively, with a range of 1 to 5 pages.

Thus, on average, Milgram’s study was given almost as many

pages of coverage as the SPE was given paragraphs of cover-

age. However, it is important to realize that this comparison

has to be qualified by the fact that Milgram’s study was far

more extensive than the SPE (24 experimental variations with

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780 participants lasting an academic year vs. one experiment

with 24 participants lasting 6 days) and thus would require

more space for adequate coverage.

Coverage of the SPE was located in the social psychology

chapter in nine texts and in the research methods chapter in

the other two texts. In addition, one of the texts that included

coverage in the social psychology chapter also included a one-

sentence reference to the SPE in the chapter on consciousness

in a discussion of the social–cognitive theory of hypnosis. The

coverage in the two chapters on research methods revolved

mainly around research ethics, whereas the coverage in the

social psychology chapters revolved mainly around deindivi-

duation and the influence of social roles and, to a lesser

extent, conformity. A description of the SPE comprised the

chapter opener once in a research methods chapter and once

in a social psychology chapter. Providing evidence of the

SPE’s compelling iconography, 9 of the 11 texts included at

least one photo from the SPE. The mean and median numbers

of photos were 1.4 and 1.0, respectively, with a range of 0 to

4. All of the photos were of the guards or prisoners or both,

except in one case in which it was of the newspaper advertise-

ment used to recruit participants for the SPE.

Of the 11 texts, 5 did not include any criticism of the SPE,

and the other 6 provided very minimal discussions of such

criticism. One text included a sentence questioning the ecolo-

gical validity of the SPE results but did not provide a refer-

ence. Three texts briefly discussed ethical questions created

by the SPE, such as the question of whether the ethical costs

of the SPE outweighed its scientific gains but did not provide

references. One of these texts also stated that many research-

ers have challenged the legitimacy of the SPE, which would

seem to be referring to the recent criticisms of the SPE, but

no references were provided. Another one of these texts stated

that ‘‘most’’ psychologists believe that the SPE did not violate

ethical principles but did not provide a reference for this

statement. This same text also mentioned a 1983 replication

of the SPE by a high school teacher who used volunteer stu-

dents but again did not provide a reference. Possibly this

author was referring to ‘‘The Third Wave’’ recreation of Nazi

Party dynamics by high school teacher Ron Jones in Palo

Alto, California, but this occurred prior to the SPE in 1967

(see Zimbardo, 2007, pp. 281–283).

Of the 11 texts, 2 mentioned the BBC Prison Study, but only

1 provided a reference for it. One of these texts devoted two

lines of text and a photo with a caption to the BBC Prison Study

and succinctly pointed out its differences from the SPE: (a) less

direction provided to the participants from the investigators

and (b) the observation of much less ‘‘conformity’’ to guard

and prisoner roles. The difference in interpretations of the SPE

findings by Zimbardo (the roles of guard and prisoner over-

whelmed individuality) and by Reicher and Haslam (partici-

pants were merely responding to Zimbardo’s instructions)

was also pointed out in the photo caption. However, no refer-

ence for the BBC Prison Study was cited. The other text

included a paragraph discussion of some of the SPE’s short-

comings, including its lack of control, that it was more of a

demonstration than an experiment, the possibility of demand

characteristics, and the unsuccessful attempt to replicate its

findings in the BBC Prison Study. In this case, the Reicher and

Haslam (2006) reference was provided, and this citation is the

only critique of the SPE formally cited in any of the 11 texts.

Unlike these two texts that mentioned the BBC Prison Study

(in which an alternative social-identity explanation of the SPE

results is given), seven of the other nine texts gave situationist

interpretations for the SPE outcome, and the other two did not

really provide explicit explanations. Surprisingly, given the

strong evidence for the presence of demand characteristics in

the SPE, the two texts that mentioned the BBC Prison Study

were the only ones to mention or allude to this criticism.

Finally, 7 of the 11 textbooks discussed the prisoner abuse in

Iraq and related it to the SPE.

The mean and median numbers of SPE citations per text

were 1.9 and 2, respectively, with a range of 1 to 3. The specific

SPE references cited varied considerably across the 11 texts.

There were 11 different references cited and a total of 21 cita-

tions provided for the SPE in the 11 texts that included SPE

coverage. Of these 12 references, 6 were cited only once, 3

twice, and 1 thrice. One (Haney et al., 1973b) was cited 6 times.

This citation variance is likely at least partially due to the shot-

gun publication approach used to initially report the SPE

results. It is worth noting that the 1973 article on the SPE in

Naval Research Reviews (Haney et al., 1973a) was not cited

in any of the textbooks. This is possibly due to limited access,

but this article is available at http://zimbardo.com/downloads.

It is also worth noting that although one text cited Zimbardo

(2006)—a article in which he responds to, and critiques, an arti-

cle on the BBC Prison Study (Reicher & Haslam, 2006), the

Reicher and Haslam source article itself was not cited nor was

Haslam and Reicher’s response to Zimbardo’s article that

appeared in the same issue (Haslam & Reicher, 2006). This

is likely due to the fact that this article was cited as a basic ref-

erence for the SPE and not as a response to the Reicher and

Haslem article. Similarly, the article by Haney and Zimbardo

(2009) was cited as a basic reference for the SPE, and it is actu-

ally a response to the Carnahan and McFarlane’s (2007) article

on the possibility of participant self-selection in the SPE.

Discussion

The current findings indicate that most contemporary introduc-

tory text authors have not omitted the coverage of the SPE. Of

the 13 contemporary texts, 11 examined provided coverage of

the SPE. In addition, 5 of the 11 texts did not include any crit-

icism of the SPE, and the other 6 provided rather minimal crit-

ical discussions.3 Given the abundance of criticism available,

why might introductory text authors provide such limited cov-

erage of it? One possibility would be lack of knowledge of the

criticism.4 This lack of knowledge, however, would not seem

very likely, given the sheer amount of criticism that has been

published and the prominence of the journals in which it has

appeared. Nevertheless, it may be the case that the text authors

are not aware of the extent of the criticism, and if they were,

Griggs 199

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they would likely revise their coverage of the SPE or possibly

even omit it. Introductory textbooks cover hundreds of topics

and cite thousands of references so their authors may not be

conversant with all relevant studies on the hundreds of topics,

especially given that introductory psychology texts are revised

on a short cycle, typically 3 years. If this is the case and intro-

ductory text authors are not aware of the entirety of the criti-

cism of the SPE, then this article should help to rectify that

situation.5

It is also possible, however, that some of the authors are

aware of the extensive criticism but decided not to include

it for their own individual reasons. One such reason would

be that they think that Zimbardo and his colleagues’ responses

to the criticisms sufficiently defused them. Even so, it seems

remiss not to at least mention the criticisms, which can be

minimally summarized in a paragraph or so. A debate litera-

ture about each of the major criticisms exists, and, if they have

not already done so, introductory text authors and teachers

should familiarize themselves with the arguments on both

sides of these debates. Most of the references for the debates

about demand characteristics, participant self-selection, and

the BBC Prison Study are listed at http://www.prisonexp.

org/controversies.htm, and PDFs of some of these articles are

available at http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org/resources.php?

p¼86. Additional critical articles for these debates and others

are cited in this article. Careful reading of all of these articles

will allow introductory textbook authors and teachers to make

a more informed decision about the nature and the extent of

their coverage of the SPE.

Another possibility for the lack of coverage of the SPE cri-

tiques stems from the continuing criticism that introductory

psychology textbooks are far too long, bordering on encyclo-

pedic (e.g., Johnson & Carton, 2006; Landrum, 2000). Thus,

there is pressure on introductory text authors to make each

new edition shorter than the last one, but there is also pressure

to be up to date and include coverage of important new studies

and topics (Blumenthal, 1990–1991). In order to accommo-

date these conflicting demands, expansions of coverage for all

of the existing topics required by new developments for those

topics obviously cannot make it into the new edition. Some-

times older classic studies are even deleted from texts (Griggs

& Jackson, 2007). But, given the notoriety of the SPE, it

would seem too important not to update its coverage. Again

though, individual authors may have decided not to do so for

their own individual reasons.

It is likely that all of these possibilities as well as other fac-

tors play a role in the textbook authors’ decisions about SPE

coverage in their texts. Different authors have different criteria

as to what studies should or should not be included in their

respective texts. With respect to coverage of the SPE, even

nonpsychologists have strong feelings about whether such cov-

erage should be included in introductory texts. The responses to

Gray’s blog illustrated this nicely. Some of the responders

agreed with him that the SPE should not be included in intro-

ductory texts, and others disagreed and thought that it should.

Some of those who thought that it should be included argued

that although the SPE might be bad science, it made more sense

to include the SPE and then discuss its shortcomings, leading

students to think more critically about research. This seems a

reasonable course of action because many, if not most, students

have already heard about the SPE so it is important not only to

correct possible misconceptions about it but also to discuss its

methodological problems.

For introductory text authors who find this solution attrac-

tive, the following is a possible path that they might want to

take to accomplish it. Instead of positioning SPE coverage

in the social psychology chapter, position it in the research

methods chapter (or the text section covering methods)

because research methods are almost always covered in the

first or second chapter of the text. Using a description of the

SPE as the chapter (section) opener will not only garner stu-

dent interest but start students thinking about psychological

research. The story of the SPE is compelling and will grab

students’ attention. Then the author could periodically return

to the SPE throughout the chapter (section) and use it as

springboard to illustrate various methodological concepts and

concerns by presenting brief discussions of the relevant criti-

cisms of the SPE where appropriate. Importantly too, this will

not only provide students with evidence that psychological

science moves forward but also a sense of exactly how this

is achieved (i.e., through empirical and theoretical debate).

One of the texts examined in the present study took this path

but only criticized the SPE for its unethical nature and inade-

quate debriefing, but there are many other important methodo-

logical concerns that can be discussed, such as the presence of

strong demand characteristics, possible participant selection

bias, the constraints on generalizability, the question of ecolo-

gical validity, and the disparate findings of the BBC Prison

Study. It would also seem beneficial to students to discuss

whether the Stanford Prison Experiment is truly an experiment

or whether it would be more aptly described as a simulation

study, and if so, where does a simulation study fit within the

typical taxonomy of research methods covered in introductory

textbooks. By the end of the chapter (section), students should

be well on their way to thinking more critically about the

research process—as well as various threats to both internal

and external validity (Campbell & Stanley, 1966)—and should

then be able carry this critical attitude forward throughout the

rest of the text and introductory course. In sum, the SPE and its

criticisms comprise a solid thread to weave numerous research

concepts together into a good ‘‘story’’ that would not only

enhance student learning but also lead students to engage in

critical thinking about the research process and all of the pos-

sible pitfalls along the way. Introductory psychology teachers

may also want to consider following such a path in their lec-

tures on research methods regardless of the coverage of the

SPE in the introductory text used in their class.

For various individual reasons, many text authors and intro-

ductory teachers will still prefer to cover the SPE in the social

psychology chapter (section of the course) and not within the

discussion of research methods. Satisfactory coverage of the

SPE criticisms may then become somewhat more problematic

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for text authors because of space constraints in a chapter on a

more substantive topic. Minimally, at least a paragraph or two

in which the criticisms are enumerated and the accompanying

references provided would seem necessary. By contrast, teach-

ers would seem to have more leeway in deciding how much

time to spend on these methodological concerns in course lec-

ture. Given the finding that the coverage of the SPE criticisms

in current introductory texts is rather minimal, adding coverage

of this supplementary material in lecture should prove to be

invaluable to student understanding of not only the SPE but

also the general research process. Because the social psychol-

ogy chapter is typically one of the last chapters in introductory

textbooks, coverage in this chapter should help students to inte-

grate what they have learned thus far about methodology and

thus serve as a capstone methods experience rather than a cor-

nerstone experience as it would if covered in the research meth-

ods chapter (section of the course).

Finally, it is important to realize that authoring an intro-

ductory textbook is a very complex, challenging, and arduous

task. McConnell (1988) made this point very clear when he

noted that introductory textbooks have to satisfy five different

audiences:

These five different audiences—students, instructors, peers and

colleagues, publishers, and one’s inner feelings and needs—

make very different and often conflicting demands on the writer

of an introductory text. Satisfying them all is something of an

impossibility. (p. 167)

Acknowledgment

I thank Brian Collisson, Peter Gray, and Alex Haslam for their helpful

comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to

the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship,

and/or publication of this article.

Notes

1. In discussing such mistakes by introductory psychology textbook

authors, Weiten and Wight pointed out that in preparation for writ-

ing a chapter on the history of introductory psychology textbooks

from the 1890s through the 1980s, they read reviews of more than

400 introductory texts; and that in these reviews, ‘‘the vast majority

of texts were characterized as accurate, scholarly, and current’’

(Weiten & Wight, 1992, p. 487). Weiten and Wight also point out

that many of these misconceptions were not unique to introductory

texts but had been widely accepted in the psychological community

as a whole.

2. Zimbardo was an author or coauthor of an introductory psychology

textbook, Psychology and Life, for four decades, from the 1970s

through the 2000s. Thus, given Zimbardo’s influence on this

textbook, it should be informative to contrast the coverage statistics

observed in the present study with those for the latest edition of

Psychology and Life (Gerrig, 2013). Psychology and Life includes

nine paragraphs of Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) coverage

(almost 3 times that in the typical introductory text in the present

study), four photos (typically one in the present study), and a figure

of SPE data showing the frequencies across 25 observation periods

of 11 behaviors for guards and prisoners (not one text included a

figure in the present study). The coverage in Psychology and Life

spanned two pages of two-column text. Thus, the SPE coverage

was much greater than that observed for the typical textbook in the

present study. With respect to its coverage of SPE criticisms, only

the question of ethical issues was raised, and the reader was

referred to Zimbardo’s (2007) discussion of such issues. There

were no citations to articles critical of the SPE.

3. To check the reliability of these findings, I examined a convenience

sample of three full-length introductory textbooks published ini-

tially before 2000. Thus, these texts were older than those exam-

ined in the present study, which were all published initially since

2000. Two of the texts were in their 10th editions, and one was

in its 6th edition. All three texts had copyright dates of 2012 or

2013. I include reference information for these texts in the refer-

ence section. Each reference is preceded by two asterisks. In brief,

the results were remarkably similar to those observed in the present

study. Two of the texts included SPE coverage in the social psy-

chology chapter and one text in the research methods chapter. The

mean and median number of paragraphs devoted to the SPE cover-

age was 3.3 and 4, respectively, with a range of 2 to 4. Only two of

the three texts included any discussion of criticisms of the SPE.

One had two sentences on the unethical nature of the SPE, and one

had four sentences on individual differences and the person/situa-

tion interaction. None of the texts included any discussion of the

BBC Prison Study findings or the presence of demand characteris-

tics in the SPE.

4. Because social psychologists would likely be more aware of the

criticisms of the SPE, it would seem that the introductory texts

authored or coauthored by a social psychologist would be more

likely to include coverage of the criticisms. To check this possibil-

ity, the set of 13 texts were divided into two groups (those with a

social psychology author and those without one) by consulting the

about the author(s) section in each text and online biographical

information when necessary. I then compared the results for the

two groups with respect to coverage of the SPE and criticisms of

it. Each group included one text that omitted SPE coverage, but

a larger percentage of the texts without a social psychologist author

included criticism of the SPE than those with a social psychology

author, 57% versus 25%, respectively. Thus, if these social psy-

chologist authors had a greater knowledge of the SPE criticisms,

they chose not to include the criticisms in their introductory text-

books. This finding, however, does not preclude the possibility that

the SPE criticisms are covered in greater detail in introductory social

psychology textbooks, which can more easily afford the space for a

more balanced coverage of the SPE. Whether this possibility is or is

not the case remains a question for future research to answer.

5. There is a new series of books aimed at providing updates on the

classic studies in psychology, such as Zimbardo’s SPE, in the

Griggs 201

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various subareas within psychology (e.g., social psychology). Each

book covers 12–15 classic studies within a subarea, and each chap-

ter discusses one of the classic studies and the important ways in

which thinking and research have advanced in the years since the

classic study was conducted. Thus, these books should prove to

be valuable resources for both introductory psychology text authors

and teachers. So far only the books on classic studies in develop-

mental psychology (Slater & Quinn, 2012) and social psychology

(Smith & Haslam, 2012) are available.

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