By Brianne Helfrich and Mariah Chobany
Netflix just announced that they will be re-creating the Stanford Prison Experiment as a reality tv show (titled The New Stanford Prison Experiment) airing this October. The six 45-minute episode series involve 30 participants, and this news has sparked online viral debate and disbelief with many expressing strong concerns over the ethics of the series. As ethicists, we agree, but let’s talk about why.
The new Netflix series stems from psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s controversial 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. This experiment recruited 24 healthy male college students who were paid $15 a day, and the participants were randomly assigned the role of either “guard” or “prisoner.” The study was originally designed to examine how individuals respond to positions of power and powerlessness, and whether those given power might abuse it under certain circumstances. But this study has been historically renowned for failing many ethical standards and becoming a core pillar of research ethics education.
The Stanford Prison Experiment violated three core research ethics principles: human protection, informed consent, and scientific validity. First, any research conduct involving human participation ought to be effectively regulated to ensure protection. This is why Institutional Research Boards and Research Ethics Boards exist. The Stanford Prison Experiment directly violated this ethical principle by imposing psychological, emotional and mental harm onto its participants. Secondly, this experiment failed to adequately meet research standards of informed consent. The participants were not informed of the psychological trauma and degradation associated with the experiment. The advertisement described a “psychological study of prison life,” rather than accurately depicting the realities they were about to endure. Additionally, although participants signed initial consent forms, their ability to withdraw from the experiment was undermined by researchers by way of making participants feel “trapped” or unable to leave. Finally, Dr. Philip Zimbardo served simultaneously as the lead researcher and the superintendent of the prison, a dual role that has been criticized as compromising the scientific validity of the experiment and influencing his decision-making, ultimately delaying its conclusion.
So, when Netflix announced that they are recreating this past experiment, ethicists, psychologists and potential viewers have raised their concerns.
The press release states that the new series aims to “re-examine themes of power hierarchy and human empathy, testing whether ordinary people inevitably succumb to systemic corruption when thrust into positions of control.” But is a reality television show equipped to do this while also maintaining ethical standards? Unlike academic research, reality television is not necessarily subject to the same standards for informed consent, participant risk or protection. In research, for example, consent standards are much higher, and researchers face stricter limits on the risks participants can be asked to assume, even when participants are compensated. Reality television, by contrast, routinely compensates participants for taking on risks that generally may not be permissible in a research setting. That raises a more fundamental question: if the series presents itself asad testing a psychological question, what ethical standards should apply to entertainment that adopts the methods and aims of a scientific experiment?
Perhaps the answer is not that reality television should be treated as research, but that it requires its own ethical standards. A reality show recreating a psychological experiment may not have the same purpose as academic research, but it can still expose participants to psychological risks that research ethics are designed to prevent. At minimum such programs could be expected to establish standards for informed consent, psychological screening, participant welfare, monitoring, and protections against foreseeable harm. This would recognize the distinction between research and entertainment while still acknowledging that entertainment built around human experimentation creates ethical responsibilities of its own.
We know the psychological impact this sort of experiment has on participants, as evidenced by results from the original Stanford Prison Experiment. So, to create a reality television show that simulates that experiment, there is reason to consider whether similar effects could occur. From a research ethics lens, research is ethically supportable when the benefit outweighs the potential harm. While this reality television show is not a regulated study, this principle can still provide a useful framework for considering how participants should be protected. If reality television is going to recreate psychological experiments, it should have ethical standards that consider whether the potential benefits of the program justify the risks imposed on participants. In this scenario, we know the expected harms. But what could that benefit be? Profit? Public exposure? Fame for the participants?
So, the question remains: Can the financial profit or entertainment value for viewers outweigh the potential harms to participants? How will Netflix regulate this reality show to ensure that participants are protected from the psychological, emotional and mental effects that were prevalent in the original Stanford experiment? The Stanford Prison Experiment is infamous for failures rather than successes. It is used as an example of “what not to do” for an ethical lens. So, for Netflix to take a historically difficult research project and turn it into a reality show almost mitigates all the lessons learned.
Netflix has not only a responsibility, but a duty, to ensure that their new reality show does not a repeat the ethical failures that made the Sanford Prison Experiment a quintessential research ethics case study.
Authors: Brianne Helfrich and Mariah Chobany
Affiliations: BH: Bioethics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto; MC: Clinical Ethics, Sanford Health, Fargo, United States
Conflicts of Interest: None to declare
Social Media Accounts: BH: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianne-helfrich ; MC: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariah-chobany