Movie Review 2 - The Experiment

Have you guys heard of a classic unethical experiment called as the Stanford Prison Experiment? This field experiment sought out to see the attribution to the behaviors manifested by guards and prisoners in a prison that lead to abusive treatments. This is the base of this 2010 thriller movie, "The Experiment" where chosen male participants would be acting as the guards and the prisoners in a mock prison. Much of the motivation these guys decided to participate in the first place was the handsome amount of money offered if the experiment was successful, about $1000 perday, and the experiment was intended to go on for two weeks.

Travis (Adrien Brody) and Barris (Forest Whitaker) were basically the main pro- and antagonist of the movie. Travis was located among the prisoners and the Barris among the guards. The first day went on normally, with ever participant still adjusted to the role that had been given to each one of them. However, as the days went by, they started to take their role seriously, actually too seriously.

Travis quickly became the unofficial leader of the inmates since he was with all the courage and bravery to protest, and Barris quickly assumed as the leader of the guards when his initiatives to shut down Travis' rebellion was respected by the prisoners and the guards altogether. However, being too deeply invested in his role, Barris started to act authoritarian, where every rule, or his rule, broken would be responded with aggression until it flamed a serious anger when Barris killed a diabetic inmate, who also was a friend of Travis'. Starting from there, and the drowning-of-head-in-the-toilet-bowl, the prisoners, led by Travis, became uncontrollable and ran amok to take down of the violent guards. Until when it was too aggressive, the  participants were finally let go, and the experimenter was arrested for manslaughter.

A lot of psychological phenomena can be observed from this movie. First, role theory asserts that every individual carries a set of roles within him or her. Somehow, when we're given a role, we're more likely to conform to it, because there are a certain expectations that we do not want to violate (like not wanting to mess up their role as prisoners and guards because they're expected to finish the experiment or else, they wouldn't get paid). These roles, and the way we try to uphold them, influence our behaviors and personality traits. This might be why Barris who was a shy and homebody man, became very aggressive and violent once he was very uptight about his role as a guard.

Second, do you remember Stanley Milgram's obedience experiment? He found from his experiment that people have the tendency to obey to an authoritative figure to a frightening and threatening level, up to the willingness to end a life. The experimenter in "The Experiment" and in the original Stanford Prison Experiment (the experimenter acted as the superintendent) became the authority and the guards obeyed to them. Without the guards realizing, a man died and bloods were spilled. That is how dangerous obedience can be.

Third, you can see from this experiment how Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs can be seen very significantly. The prisoners were secured with the biological needs, but their safety need was the one that was threatened. You can see how true it is that we could go to an unexpected length to make sure that we're safe. When the prisoners in the Stanford experiment felt unsafe with the guards taking control, they started to rebel, and in the movie, the rebellion caused a bloody war.

This movie, although only partly represented the experiment, actually gave good ideas how dangerous a certain psychological phenomenon can be. Which is why some experiments are unethical in the first place, because lives could be at stake. Watch it if you're a fan of psychology. This might inspire you.