It is one of the most notorious social experiments ever conducted, inspiring numerous films, documentaries and psychological studies. In August of 1971, Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo recruited 24 male college students to participate in a study — funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research — about antisocial behavior and the effects of imprisonment.
Selected students passed a psych screening and didn’t have criminal records or medical conditions. The psychology department was transformed into a mock prison replete with small cells, a corridor doubling as a prison yard and a closet for “solitary confinement, and for two weeks, at a rate of $15 a day ($124.79 in 2026), participants would be dropped into a simulated prison environment and assigned randomly to the role of prison guard or prisoner. They were referred to only by the number on their prison uniform as a form of dehumanization, and guards were encouraged to maintain order by any means necessary.
By Day 2 of the study, the inmates had staged a rebellion against the guards, using their beds to barricade themselves inside their cells; the guards responded by spraying the prisoners with fire extinguishers, forcing them to strip and sleep on the cold concrete floor. As the situation worsened, with guards exhibiting increasingly cruel forms of punishment and several prisoners suffering mental breakdowns, the Stanford prison experiment was ended on the sixth day. It’s now considered a colossal ethical failure due to its lack of safeguards for participants, neglecting to properly inform partakers of the parameters, poor oversight and the fact that the man conducting the experiment, Dr.
Zimbardo, also served as the “prison” superintendent. So, now would be the perfect time for a redo, right? It seeks to answer the question, “Does power corrupt?” And raises additional ones about conformity, dominance/submission, voyeurism and the bounds of reality television.
Executive produced by Jane Lipsitz and Dan Cutforth (“Top Chef,” “Project Runway”) via their production company Alfred Street Industries, “The New Stanford Prison Experiment” takes thirty participants from diverse backgrounds, transports them to a decommissioned section of a real working prison — the Adult Detention Center in Cherokee County, Georgia — and simulates a prison environment over two weeks, assigning eight as guards (splitting them up between separate day shift and night shift teams) and 22 as prisoners. Furthermore, the crew took pains to make sure the inmates or guards weren’t aware of the production, so as not to influence their decision-making, by having no crew members in the pod and everything shot on Robocam. The show implemented a number of safeguards to ensure that things never went haywire, including “extensive background checks and psychological testing” for all participants, informed consent, medics and psychologists on call 24/7, a safe word (“pineapple”) if they ever felt they needed to leave or wanted to talk to a therapist and/or producer and a series of confessional interviews throughout the experiment.
There was also a panel of experts observing the inmates and guards at all times, and advising production on the ethics of the undertaking: Alison Wood Brooks, a behavioral scientist who teaches a course called “How to talk gooder in business and life” at Harvard Business School; Michael Cantrell, a former federal corrections officer; and Trymaine Lee, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. And yes, participants in the experiment/reality show were paid, though Lipsitz and Cutforth were unable to disclose just how much. There’s no big prize at the end and you’re not meeting the love of your life.
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