Who would study psychology if they didn't have some kind of problem?

Chapter 374 The Out-of-Control Experiment [4,000 words in two parts]

Of course, Nan Zhuren can't see some of the expressions on people's faces right now.

To avoid affecting the students' concentration, Nan Zhuren sat in the seat furthest from the projection screen, directly facing it.

In other words, while everyone was watching the video courseware, Nan Zhuren could only see the partial profiles of three or four people, while everyone else could only see the back of their heads.

but……

Arms crossed, neck hunched, frequent changes in sitting posture, and occasional "tsk" sounds.

The intense emotional experience was enough to be reflected in the bodies of all the students.

There are also stools that are moved around from time to time.

These emotions are so subtle that you can hear them without even looking at them.

However, for Nan Zhuren, this was not enough.

……

The video continues to play.

Nan Zhuren explained in a calm tone: "Next, we arrived at the second day of the experiment."

A commotion erupted from the prison. A guard rushed in to check on the prisoners, glanced around briefly, and quickly grabbed a fire extinguisher, spraying the cells. After a brief disturbance, the cells quieted down, and the guard left with several prisoners.

"The first day in prison was obviously unbearable, so the second day the inmate volunteers organized a riot. They blocked the cell doors with their beds to prevent the prison guard volunteers from entering, while tearing off their prison number tags and shouting 'This is not a prison.'"

"The experiment seemed to have entered a predicament shortly after it began."

"And Zimbardo, as the experiment's host, ordered the prison guards in his capacity as 'warden' to take care of it themselves."

Nan Zhuren paused for a moment at this point.

"So the prison guards stripped the rioting prisoners naked, locked them in solitary confinement cells, and confiscated their beds."

“They set up ‘privileged cells’ for prisoners who behaved well, gave them clean prison clothes, allowed them to take showers, and let them eat good meals.”

"These 'privileged prisoners' initially refused the rewards, expressing their willingness to stand with their comrades. So all the rewards were taken back, and all the prisoner volunteers were subjected to a lot of physical punishment again, including standing for long periods, jumping jacks, push-ups, and so on."

"At the same time, prison guard volunteers prohibited inmate volunteers from showering and using the toilet, ordering them to only relieve themselves in buckets in their cells. This caused the sanitary conditions in the cells to deteriorate rapidly."

“During this process, the professors and team members who were constantly observing and monitoring did not give any instructions; they all adopted a 'tacit approval' attitude.”

The students' unease intensified, led by Zhang Zihao and his two companions.

The creaking and groaning of the stool against the floor became more frequent and more jarring.

Nan Zhuren ignored it.

He continued, "The turning point came on the second night."

The prisoners whispered among themselves, then one of them suddenly stood up and began shouting again.

The scene changes.

The professors, impeccably dressed, sat at their desks, whispering amongst themselves.

The screen turns again.

The prisoner who had initially shouted is now lying on the bed, lost in thought.

A confident voice rang out again in the video, this time deeper and more mature.

Nan Zhuren explained the visuals while translating the English content and adding his own interpretations.

"The following night, the leader who had previously organized the 'prisoner riot' demanded to withdraw from the experiment, but was dissuaded by Professor Zimbardo. At the same time, Professor Zimbardo tried to recruit this 'riot leader' into an 'informant,' promising that the 'riot leader' could exchange information about the prisoners for better rewards."

"The riot leader, frustrated by his failure to withdraw from the experiment, told his companions, 'I can't get out,' 'The professor won't let us withdraw from the experiment.' As the organizer of the riot, his reaction had a profound impact on the prisoners."

The students stared intently at the images on the screen, completely absorbed in the subsequent development of the experiment.

They seemed to think that the thoughtful "riot leader" in the picture would betray them, but the reality was different from what they expected.

The riot leaders began shouting and crying hysterically.

"That night, the riot leader suffered a mental breakdown and completely lost control. For safety reasons, the professor had to intervene and remove the riot leader from the experiment."

Nan Zhuren said, "At this point, only 36 hours have passed since the experiment began."

……

Within just 36 hours, some volunteers suffered mental breakdowns.

"Gudong" sound.

Even with the interference of the video playback sound, Nan Zhuren could still hear the sound of Li Mingchen swallowing beside him.

He was clearly very involved in what was happening in the video.

The video continues, but the music suddenly changes to a very upbeat tune.

The prisoners began cleaning their cells with great enthusiasm.

A balding middle-aged man and woman shared dinner with the volunteers, their eyes filled with concern.

Nan Zhuren said, "The experiment has entered its third day—the day for visiting prisoners. This is the procedure that was set at the beginning of the experiment."

"To appease the families of these college student volunteers, the prison guards organized the inmates to clean their cells, gave them food, and warned them that if they did anything improper during the visit, their visit time would be shortened."

"In the end, each prisoner was given ten minutes to spend with two family members. Unexpectedly, the atmosphere between the prisoners and their families was extremely warm, and not a single prisoner said anything bad about their experience with the experiment."

"Unfortunately, on the same day, the prison guards were told that someone might try to 'break into the prison.' Although nothing happened in the end, the guards were exhausted from the day's work and hadn't eaten, so they blamed the prison volunteer team for their suffering."

The prison guards, wearing sunglasses, busily moved things around before beginning to punish the prisoners.

The prisoners, dressed in their uniforms, collectively did push-ups on the floor. Some then began wiping the toilets with towels, while others knelt to polish the guards' shoes. The guards, meanwhile, strolled around casually.

Background music plays, a prison guard's narration.

Nan Zhuren continued translating: "One prison guard volunteer said, 'I started to lose all compassion and respect for them, and became as harsh on them as possible. I have convinced myself to treat these volunteers as if they were prisoners of lower status than myself.'"

The screen turns again.

Outside the cell, a prisoner again displayed a defiant attitude, and guards repeatedly struck his cell with batons as a warning.

Inside the cramped room, well-dressed white men conversed with the prisoners. Except for one uncooperative prisoner, all the volunteers began to confide in the white men.

"On the third night after the family visit ended, a full-time prison chaplain was invited to the mock prison to assess the realism of the scenario."

"The pastor spoke with the volunteers one by one and found that more than half of the volunteers introduced themselves by saying their 'prisoner number' instead of their names; at the same time, when asked 'why they were in prison,' most of the prisoner volunteers answered with the charges announced to them when they were arrested by the local police, rather than 'for the purpose of conducting experiments.'"

“During this process, the pastor asked the volunteers if they had made any efforts to get out of prison; after receiving a negative answer, the pastor assured them that he would contact lawyers for the volunteers to help them exercise their civil liberties.”

The students once again reacted obviously to the images in the video.

Li Mingchen and Lin Junkai tilted their heads and glanced at Nan Zhuren and Teacher Zhao from time to time.

The other students trembled uncomfortably, as if ants were crawling all over them. The video then switched to another scene.

There were visuals and sound. But this time, the content gave even students who couldn't understand English goosebumps.

The prisoners, dressed in white uniforms, stood in a row against the wall, chanting slogans in unison. Their eyes were numb and vacant, their bodies swaying.

The prison guards burst into laughter at what they were shouting.

The young man was crying in his room.

“When the prison chaplain arrived, there was a prisoner who refused to cooperate. His prison uniform number was '819'. So during the routine roll call, the prison guards made everyone shout, ‘Prisoner 819 did something bad,’ ‘Prisoner 819 did something bad.’”

Nan Zhuren pointed to the screen: "Every volunteer shouting the slogans clearly believes it."

"At this time, the professor went to check on volunteer number 819 and found the person hiding in their cell crying."

"The professor asked volunteer number 819 if he wanted to withdraw from the experiment, but volunteer number 819 refused. He said he was a prisoner and couldn't leave."

Nan Zhuren's voice was slow and deliberate: "It was only then that the professor realized he had been calling out the volunteer's number. Only after he called out the person's name did the volunteer realize what was happening and then withdraw from the experiment."

While this video is playing.

Nan Zhuren could feel that the people around him were looking at him and Teacher Zhao more frequently.

……

The video feed then switches.

A naked prisoner, wearing a hood, leans against a wall with his hands on the ground, his back to the guard.

The prisoner paced back and forth, waving his arms and legs like a madman, surrounded by prison guards who laughed heartily.

Nan Zhuren continued to explain.

At this moment, although his voice was no different from before, it inexplicably resonated more deeply with people.

"The experiment is now in its fourth day."

"Because some volunteers withdrew from the experiment, Professor Zimbardo added a 'candidate prisoner' to the simulated prison. This newcomer was routinely required to undergo a full set of procedures, including being naked for inspection, changing clothes, and physical punishment. Unsurprisingly, he resisted and even rebelled against this, believing that such an experiment was too much."

"At this point, his fellow inmates began to ostracize him, considering him a 'troublesome prisoner.'"

"During breaks in the experiment, the prison guards began to have the prisoners perform plays, sing, and do other shows for them, and the prisoners all cooperated very well without exception."

That evening, the professor spoke with each of the prisoner volunteers, offering them the opportunity to 'bail' in exchange for their experimental compensation, and each volunteer agreed. The professor then asked them to return to their cells to think it over. Surprisingly, after the volunteers returned to the prison environment, no one raised the topic of stopping the experiment again.

……

During Nan Zhuren's explanation.

The projector was still playing a documentary about the experiment.

The scenes of prison guards mocking and punishing prisoners continue.

The students' unrest continued.

Even Teacher Zhao crossed her legs, rubbed the goosebumps on her arms, and silently muttered: "[Closed group]."

Sudden.

The student sitting to the left of Teacher Zhao lowered his head, not daring to look at the screen anymore, while covering his mouth with his hand and staring wide-eyed.

Nan Zhuren captured this scene perfectly.

--drop.

He decisively signaled to Teacher Zhao to press the remote control.

At this point in the video, we've pretty much covered everything that needed to be shown.

The things that follow no longer have a visual impact.

……

The students stared blankly at the pitch-black projector, as if they hadn't yet recovered from what had just been shown.

After a long while, the students seemed to wake up from a dream and turned around one by one.

They all adopted defensive postures, such as crossing their arms, clenching their fists, or curling up, with remarkable tacit understanding.

Without the video presentation, Nan Zhuren concluded the experiment by giving a verbal account.

His tone was as if he were giving a data report, and he spoke almost without any emotion:

"On the fifth day of the experiment, the prison chaplain who had visited earlier brought the volunteer parents and lawyers to the prison in an attempt to rescue the volunteers. However, they discovered that this was 'just' an experiment, and since the prisoner volunteers had participated voluntarily, they felt powerless to do anything about it."

It was visibly that the students were curling up even more.

"On the sixth day, the experimenters discovered in the surveillance footage that the prison guards were even more brutal to the prisoners at night, almost to the point of 'torture'; at the same time, another professor from Stanford came to visit the experiment and was surprised to find on the monitor that the volunteers were wearing ankle chains, hoods, and being physically punished, and he raised a strong protest."

"The experiment was eventually brought to a halt under Professor Zimbardo's supervision."

call--

Nan Zhuren paused for a moment when she said this.

Unsurprisingly, I heard a series of deep breaths.

Or rather—it was a sigh of relief.

……

This Stanford prison experiment took a considerable amount of time.

The original documentary is nearly an hour long.

Nan Zhuren edited and skipped around the scenes extensively for his own group counseling purposes.

However, including the playback and narration, it still took more than half an hour.

However, Nan Zhuren's eyes swept across the students' faces one by one, and the expressions that were quite different at the beginning of the group training were now beginning to converge.

This is excellent news.

Nan Zhuren waited a while, giving the students time to process and calm down.

He then slowly said, "This was an experiment that took place in the 1970s at Stanford University in the United States, organized by a psychology professor and conducted by Stanford students as volunteers."

"Ultimately, the experiment was stopped in less than a week because it got out of control."

Nan Zhuren looked around at the students: "Now, what are your thoughts on the content of the video?"

"Please think about it and use one word to describe your current emotion, and then share it."

　Due to length constraints, the experimental section has been largely simplified. Interested readers can search for the original documentary video, which is available on Bilibili.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)