BBC's Prison Experiment
- Still from German movie "Das Experiment"
You probably won't have any great reaction to the web site that documents the Elstree Prison Experiment. I know I didn't. This experiment is much more controlled than the Stanford Experiment from 1971, and while it makes interesting watching, there's no real sense of purpose to it.
For a kick off, it's quite clear who is in control. The experimenters. 100%. The only tension that's being created is the tension that they're putting in to the situation. They make the rules, and both the guards and the prisoners are equally bound by those rules. So the guards are prisoners too. Sure, it's fascinating to observe the development of relationships over time, but there's no scientific basis to this experiment - like the original. There's no control group, against which the experiment is measured. I'll keep watching the show, though.
15 May, 2002
