Not only sensationalized, but yeah, the "guards" were encouraged to be extra cruel, and a few just ran with it. Vsauce interviews one of them in this video.
In the linked comic, the author makes the connection to the Stanford experiment and explicitly brings this up. His theory is that the experimenter got just as wrapped up in the role of the abuser as the prison staff did, and that only intervention from outside was able to snap him out of it and get the experiment ended.
I think that's a pretty standard interpretation now. Everyone was playing the role that was expected of them, with the professor unintentionally egging them on.
deleted by creator
Huh, TIL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KND_bBDE8RQ
Not only sensationalized, but yeah, the "guards" were encouraged to be extra cruel, and a few just ran with it. Vsauce interviews one of them in this video.
In the linked comic, the author makes the connection to the Stanford experiment and explicitly brings this up. His theory is that the experimenter got just as wrapped up in the role of the abuser as the prison staff did, and that only intervention from outside was able to snap him out of it and get the experiment ended.
I think that's a pretty standard interpretation now. Everyone was playing the role that was expected of them, with the professor unintentionally egging them on.