Philip Zimbardo’s legendary 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the most well-known, and notorious, research experiments in recent history.

It has been the subject of countless books, TV episodes and podcasts – and now Netflix is turning it into a reality TV series.

But what was the Stanford Prison Experiment, really? A dive into psychology and cruelty? Or a flawed power trip? And is transforming this infamous event into a reality show tempting fate?

A rundown of Stanford University’s most well-known study

Zimbardo was a psychologist at Stanford University who specialised in environmental psychology, social influences and personality traits.

In 1971, Zimbardo and his team transformed the Stanford University Psychology Building basement into a makeshift prison. He sought to study how prison environments, labels and dehumanisation can impact how regular people treat each other.

The study recruited 24 college-aged men, assigning each participant to be either a “prisoner” or a “guard” via a coin flip.

The guards were given matching uniforms meant to symbolise power, anonymity and identity. The guards also sat down with the researchers for an orientation into how they needed to behave. They were informed to maintain an environment of law and order, to create a sense of powerlessness, but not to be cruel.

Meanwhile, the prisoners were unexpectedly arrested by Palo Alto police. They were booked, fingerprinted........

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