2013-06-30
Explanation
This single-panel comic shows a person earnestly declaring: "I base my view of human nature on a six day long study of 22 non-random young males in which the experimenter was an active participant." The caption below reads: "This is what I hear when people cite the Zimbardo prison experiment."
The comic is a pointed critique of the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971. In that famous study, college students were randomly assigned to play either guards or prisoners in a simulated prison. The experiment was ended after just six days (of a planned two weeks) because the "guards" became abusive and the "prisoners" showed signs of severe psychological distress. The study has been widely cited as evidence that ordinary people will become cruel when given power, and it became one of the most famous experiments in psychology.
However, the comic highlights the serious methodological flaws that critics have identified over the years. The sample was tiny (just 22 participants), the subjects were self-selected (not randomly chosen from the general population -- they responded to a newspaper ad asking for volunteers for a "prison study"), and Zimbardo himself acted as the prison superintendent, making him an active participant rather than a detached observer. Recent investigations have also revealed that guards were coached to be harsh and that some participants were acting rather than genuinely transformed. Despite these flaws, the experiment continues to be cited as definitive proof about human nature.
The votey panel shows a character smugly saying "Take THAT, forty year old psych experiment!" which adds a self-aware layer of humor -- acknowledging that debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment is itself something of a well-worn intellectual exercise at this point.