Top 10 Most Disturbing Experiments of All Time

9. The Stanford Prison Experiment

Regarded as one of the most popular experiments in the history of psychology, the Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted in 1971 to determine how participants would react if placed in a simulated prison environment.

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues set up a mock prison in which 24 undergraduate students played the roles of both prison guards and prisoners. After being carried out for only six days, the experiment had to be stopped as the participants who played the roles of guards became abusive while those who served as prisoners showed signs of extreme stress and anxiety.

Although the experiment is frequently cited as an example of an unethical research, the results of the study raised some issues on the “corrupting effect of power on mankind.”