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US soldiers' bad behavior and Stanford Prison Experiment
Peter Orne says: "Accounts over the past few days about the behavior of US soldiers toward Iraqi prisoners are perhaps best interpreted by social psychologists who have studied these behaviors for some time now. A friend forwarded the note below from Phil Zimbardo at Stanford about the Stanford Prison Project of 1971, which apparently was discontinued because the "guards'" behavior was getting out of hand. Professor Zimbardo asks: "What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph?" At least one of the photos I've seen -- in particular, a US soldier pinning an Iraqi under a stretcher (New YorkTimes, 5/4/04) -- seems strange and incongruous. The soldier seems bemused. Were the soldier to see this image of himself stateside, say one year from now, almost surely he would be shocked".
Here is the message to which Peter referred from the well-known Stanford psychologist
Philip Zimbardo: Dear Colleagues: Just a quick note before heading off to a
meeting of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) where Psych is
the only social science among 62 societies represented, and I am its chair elect.
Recent horrors being displayed of sexual degradation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S.
military army reservists elicit direct and sad parallels between similar behavior
of the "guards" in the Stanford Prison Experiment against their "prisoners."
As the guards on the night shift became ever more bored with their long 8 hour
shift, they began to use the prisoners as play things for their amusement, believing
that their actions were not under surveillance during the night (they were secretly
video taped for subsequent viewing). I then discovered they would get them to
simulate sodomy and other homophobic behaviors. They also stripped prisoners
naked for various offenses, took away their sheets and mattresses, put them
in solitary for excessive periods -- all of which are mirrored in the behavior
of military police in the Abu Ghraib prison outside of Bagdad. It is one reason
we ended the study a week early because the guards were
abusing the power in their roles, and were becoming uncontrollable by our staff.
(see www.prisonexp.org).
Randy Black dismissed the prison experiment of Philip Zimbardo as academic
nonsense, but psychiatrist Daryl DeBell says: "I agree with everything
Professor Zimbardo says, but would make a bit more distinction between his subjects
and the abusers of the Iraqi prisoners. His subjects became sadistic, while
the pictures of the Iraqis showed their captors acting like fraternity hazers.
The woman captor, next to a couple of naked Iraqi prisoners, bent forward, grinning
and with two thumbs up was certainly not "acting in the heat of the (wartime)
moment" as one senatorial commentator would have it. Similarly in the other
picture I saw, she appeared to be crouched in the middle of a pile of naked
men, again smirking at the camera. These could have easily been pictures of
an orgy taken as souvenirs. I do not think that was the case however. I think
it was done to humiliate the prisoners. and under the circumstances it was and
is a very serious insult to the Iraqis. It should be severely punished as it
will undoubtedly cause the deaths of many occupation forces. I do not think
a great deal of training is required to prevent such actions. Warning them of
the tendency for guards to become the way Zimbardo's guards did, plus close
supervision and repeated warnings should suffice, but obviously this was not
done; an inexcusable command failure".
Philip Zimbardo answers Daryl De Bell's comments on his Stanford Prison Experiment
and its relevance to the Iraqi prison scandal: "The Navy SEAR Program (survival,
evasion and resistance program) uses my study as a caution against the too easy
abuse of power by interrogators, the same should have been done in Iraq. but
it was a torture-interrogation center run by the CIA and civilian contractor-
interrogators who used the soldiers to help break the will of the prisoners.
See my web site before you dismiss my study as academic nonsense, read my recent
essay and watch Nightline tonight". RH: Of course, like Daryl DeBell, we
took the study very seriously, simply quoting the critical opinion of a non
academic in line with the WAIS policy of allowing all sides to express their
opinion.
See:
www.zimbardo.com
www.prisonexp.org
www.psychologymatters.org
www.shyness.com
Derek Davis writes;"I suppose we all suspect some kind of backlash from
the Iraqi prison scandal. It is likely to happen, if for no other reason, that
Iraqi soldiers were so thoroughly humiliated--especially in the pictures that
required the prisoners to simulate homosexual acts with each other. This kind
of forced simulation would offend most men, but it is even more degrading to
Muslims. There is a much greater belief against homosexuality in Islam than
in Christianity. Iraqi homosexuals do not "come out." There is an
strain of interpretation of the Christian scriptures that would allow homosexuality,
but this is not true of Islam. The Qu'ran widely condemns homosexual acts among
men (I think lesbian behavior is not mentioned), and homosexuality is generally
considered by Muslims to be among the most deviant types of human behavior.
In sum, Islamic culture causes Iraqi men to take their manhood very seriously,
more so than in non-Muslim cultures, and they do not readily accept being shamed
in ways that bring into question their masculinity. Thus I suspect that we will
see some acts of retaliation on this basis alone". RH: Thomas Edward Lawrence,
Lawrence of Arabia, speaks of this in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926). He
was the companion of Faisal who became king of Iraq, so we go back to the scene
of our present troubles.
Daryl DeBell says: "I think Philip Zimbardo's experiment implies more even
than he says it does. I believe that it suggests that what we call the 'veneer'
of civilization is really much more than that. It is a framework that supports
and guides our behavior, but is dissolved when power is (in the experiment,
arbitrarily) vastly disproportionate between sets of people. The same thing
happens regularly but less starkly in every-day life. As Lord Acton said, "power
corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"."
Miles Seeley, a former CIA officer, writes: "I must disagree with Philip
Zombardo's allegation that the prison was "a torture-interrogation center
run by the CIA and civilian interrogators...." The fact is that it was
a US military prison run by an MP Company. The woman Brigadier General in command
outraged me by trying to wiggle out of responsibility by blaming Military Intelligence,
Central Intelligence, and civilian contractors and claiming she had no knowledge
of these heinous actions. She was the person in charge, and in the military
the buck stops right there. I also note that two cases of CIA contract agents
abusing and killing prisoners (one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq) were promptly
reported both to the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General in January.
I also note that the Army Reservists who manned the Company allegedly had no
training in what was supposed to be the specialty of the Company. Although I
share the disgust of most of the world at seeing these photos and reading Hersh's
article, we need to get the facts straight and let the investigations continue.
I also agree with Professor Fouad Adjami of MIT, who said last night that the
hatred of the US by the Arab world is what he called "mainstream,"
that is, an unthinking mass reflex attitude fostered by some Arab leaders and
media. I saw the same thing in Jordan 40 years ago after the Six Day War.- They
had to "hate" America, but their attitudes towards me personally were
of friendship and respect. Like the Palestinian I saw in an anti-US rally who
worked in our Consulate, and later came to me begging for help in getting him
and his family to the US".
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