SPE: Final straw and turning point

This controversy made the SPE a catalyst for debates on research ethics, leading to stricter oversight that curtailed similar experiments (APA, 2017). Zimbardo's "extreme situational determinism and negative views of social groups" (Reicher & Haslam, 2006, p. 3) dominated discussions until studies like the BBC Prison Experiment offered alternative perspectives. Moreover, some psychologists, like David Lykken (2000), criticized the SPE's applicability to real-world prisons, noting that college students in a controlled setting differ significantly from actual criminals.