Netflix Recreated the Stanford Prison Experiment. Here's the Trailer

In the 1970s, psychology professor Philip G. Zimbardo from Stanford University led an experiment in which 24 students were randomly selected to be either guards or prisoners in a study designed to examine the psychological effects of authority and powerlessness in a prison setting. It was a two-week planned experiment. They ended it after six days because of the dehumanizing treatment the prisoners — who were actually students — experienced at the hands of the guards, who were also, again, students.

Netflix decided to rerun that experiment. On television. Presumably, in a study designed to examine whether a huge number of viewers will tune in to see if regular folks will dehumanize other regular folks because of the roles they were randomly assigned.

Based on the trailer, it appears that the participants fully took on those roles. I guess I’m mostly surprised that the experiment does not have a prize element, where the last one standing wins $1 million or something. It’s a disturbing thing to do for television, but I have no doubt that it will attract a streaming audience.