BBC Prison Experiment: Group failure leads to tyranny

Similarly, Stephen Reicher and Alexander Haslam (2006) argued that assuming groups are bad and that power automatically results in abuses is an oversimplification. Teaming with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Reicher and Haslam set up another prison experiment that would offer a different perspective on the influences of roles and context on individual behavior. Like Zimbardo’s SPE study, Reicher and Haslam’s BBC study created a prison environment and randomly assigned roles of guard and prisoner to their subjects. However, unlike SPE, the researchers conducted the BBC experiment under the careful scrutiny of an ethical committee.

Another difference Reicher and Haslam (2006) emphasized was that the SPE system was built on an unquestioned power structure in which Zimbardo influenced the outcome by asserting himself as the prison warden, coaching the guards in how to treat the prisoners. This gave the Stanford guards authority, permission, guidance, and modeling for abusive behavior.

In the BBC study, Reicher and Haslam (2006) established an environment of negotiated power between the prisoners and guards and observed rather than actively participate. As the experiment progressed through this context, the guards became uncomfortable with their roles and hesitated to exercise authority. This led to a breakdown in the system when the prisoners joined to intimidate the guards; the opposite result Zimbardo had generated.

Zimbardo (2007) had concluded that the social role a person plays determines behavior and that groups create tyranny. Contrarily, the BBC experiment exposed a different dimension on social behavior by demonstrating how people have the agency to influence situations, and how groups can be the basis for resisting tyranny (Reicher & Haslam, 2006). For example, one particular guard in the Stanford Prison Experiment took on the archetypical prison guard role to the point of wearing mirrored sunglasses and a hat similar to those worn by cruel guards in Cool Hand Luke, a 1967 movie about the futility of standing against authority in a Georgia prison.

In contrast, the societal and cultural context of the BBC experiment was entirely different from that of SPE; conducted in England, taped for television, prisoner and guard roles filled by experienced adults rather than college students from a private university, and laws to prevent the prison abuses like those in American southern chain gang prisons (Reicher & Haslam, 2006). Not surprisingly, the results of the experiments were also different, with the guards organizing to overthrow guards who were hesitant to exert authority.

The BBC study confirmed that understanding tyranny requires “analysis of group processes and intergroup relations,” not just individuals. While the SPE concluded that a “toxic combination of groups and power leads to tyranny”, the BBC study concluded that group failure leads to tyranny: “It is the breakdown of groups and powerlessness that creates the conditions under which tyranny can triumph” (Reicher & Haslam, 2006, p. 33). A final key lesson from the BBC study is that social psychologists can conduct relevant and powerful field research using ethical methods.