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About the study

In December 2001, Alex Haslam (University of Exeter) and Steve Reicher (University of St Andrews) collaborated with the BBC to conduct a major investigation of group processes within a simulated prison environment.  The study was one of the largest conducted in social psychology in the last 30 years.

Over 4 one-hour episodes, the story of this research was broadcast in the BBC2 programme "The Experiment". The progamme was an attempt to marry ground-breaking television with cutting-edge social science.

Over a period of nine days, Haslam and Reicher collected social, clinical and organisational data from 15 participants in order to test theoretical ideas about the psychology of power and resistance, tyranny and order. The results led to a series of publications in leading scientific journals.

In 2008 the study was included as one of 15 'core' studies on the new OCR A-level syllabus. To meet demand from teachers and students, this led researchers to create an official website, which can be accessed here. The site contains details of the study, video clips and a range of resources including exercises, activities and research publications.

Sample publication

• Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2005). Beyond Stanford: Questioning a role-based explanation of tyranny. Dialogue, 2003, 18, 22-25.
  - pdf version

The DVDs

The BBC have recently released DVDs covering the 4 programmes: Conflict, Order, Rebellion and Tyranny. A 140-page manual written by the researchers accompanies these, as well as a full transcript of the programmes. 

A flyer allowing the DVDs to be purchased at reduced price, is available here.