Category: bullying

“The Stanford Prison Experiment” movie: What happened in the film that didn’t happen in real life?

Jamie ChamberlinLeave a comment

The new feature film “The Stanford Prison Experiment” is “about 90 percent accurate,” said Stanford University psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo, PhD, at a showing of the film today as part of APA’s Film Festival.

At the screening, Zimbardo — who conducted the now-famous experiment in 1971 to simulate the conditions of prison and examine the power of social situations over individual personality — shared some of the differences between what really happened in the basement of the Stanford psychology building and what’s depicted in the film.

Among the greatest differences is that the movie shows one student being “arrested” by Palo Alto police at his home to begin the study, omitting the fact that all nine students assigned as prisoners were first taken to the Palo Alto police department after their arrests. There, they were booked, fingerprinted and held in a cell for several hours before they were taken to the university.

Other differences include:

• The Stanford professor who encounters Zimbardo as he is sitting outside the prisoners’ cells one night and asks, “What is the independent variable in your study? This is an experiment, right, not just a simulation?” is played by an older actor in the movie. In reality, the person who posed that question was Zimbardo’s same-age Stanford colleague and his Yale graduate school roommate – well-known experimental psychologist Gordon Bower, PhD.

• Zimbardo was never involved in the “parole hearings” held for prisoners as he is in the movie. Instead, some secretaries ran those meetings along with Carlo Prescott (who is featured in the film) — a man Zimbardo brought in to help with the experiment because he had recently been released from prison after serving 17 years.

• In the real study, there was less frequent physical abuse by the guards, Zimbardo noted. “The only physical abuse was during the rebellion when the guards broke in and the prisoners started attacking them,” he said.

Zimbardo told attendees that the experiment eventually led him to shift his area of research to shyness, which he studied for the next 20 years. “One of the messages of the study is the extent to which all prisons are prisons of the mind,” he said. “Shyness is a self-imposed psychological prison.”

He also said that he moved away from “creating evil” to “inspiring heroism” by launching the Heroic Imagination Project, a nonprofit organization that teaches children about heroism and promotes the use of social science research to teach people ways to resist bullying and oppression.

Zimbardo is now organizing a screening of “The Stanford Prison Experiment” for President Obama at the While House since the president recently made the first visit by a sitting president to a federal prison and is calling for prison reform.

“The Stanford Prison Experiment” is showing in theatres in limited release. Zimbardo will be answering attendees’ questions about the film online over the next few days. Email questions to .

Cyberbullying: R U 4 real ????

sluapaLeave a comment

When kids communicate online, their relationships in real life may help them determine whether someone is cyberbullying.

Emoticons, writing in all caps and using acronyms can influence adolescents’ perceptions of what their peers write, helping replace other cues like tone of voice and facial expressions that might help them interpret meaning in real life. Still, an offline relationship guides how kids might interpret ambiguous sentences such as, “I’ll find you after school. :-) ”

Michal Bak, a graduate student at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, presented a pilot study on how young people process information online during a symposium entitled “Cyber Aggression – Perceptions, Behaviors and Influential Factors.” While knowing a writer helps, research in the field so far suggests that other things come into play, such as social status, when kids react to what’s put online, he said.

“Social status cues may be more prominent in online settings, because adolescents can obtain additional info like followers, positive comments, likes and up-votes,” Bak said. The 30 youngsters he and his team interviewed often couldn’t recall receiving ambiguous messages, but “sometimes emoticons tend to obscure the message, and we find that students tend to hide their real intentions using them,” he said.

More people may be liable to come to a victim’s defense in real life, too, according to work from Nicole Summers, a graduate student at Carleton University. She and her research colleagues are studying moral disengagement in cyber aggression.

Looking at almost 500 emerging adults in Canada ages 16 to 20, she and her colleagues found that over 88 percent of them reported having read insults or mean comments in social media forums at least once in the past year, and over 35 percent of participants witnessed these behaviors weekly. Those who had higher levels of moral disengagement – such as believing one couldn’t help, blaming or dehumanizing the bullying victim, or disregarding help – were more likely to have pro-bullying behaviors such as enjoying reading mean online posts.

“In [real life] social situations you can be an insider, meaning somebody who goes along with bullying, but being online you’re always an outsider. You don’t have to disengage online, because you’re already disengaged to begin with,” she said.

When it comes to online versus social aggression, gender may make a difference, said Megan Lamb, a graduate student at Carleton University. In her study of 429 students ages 11 to 18 in rural eastern Canada, 86 percent reported using social aggression against a friend, and 92 percent reported being socially victimized by a friend in the past school year. The bullying happened online, too, and there was a strong relationship to bullying or being victimized in both arenas. About half of all students reported using cyber aggression against a friend in the past school year, and 67 percent reported being victimized.

Girls reported using and being victims of face-to-face social aggression more than boys. However, boys and girls did not differ much in how often they engaged in cyber aggression.

“Boys are often less comfortable using social aggression, but because cyber aggression is more anonymous, maybe [they] feel more comfortable using that,” she said.

Identity-Based Bullying Is a Social Justice Issue

britneybrinkmanLeave a comment

Most psychologists are likely familiar with bullying and its detrimental effects. However, they may not be familiar with the term “identity-based bullying,” which includes any form of bullying related to the characteristics considered particular to a child’s actual or perceived social identity. Identity-based bullying is one form of discrimination, and it is also a
method through which children learn prejudicial attitudes and stereotypes.

Identity-based bullying can include:

  • Ostracizing a student with a disability
  • Teasing a black student by saying he or she is “acting white”
  • Calling a girl a “slut” or shaming her about sexual activity or her body
  • Teasing an overweight teen about her/his body
  • Using anti-gay terms or teasing adolescents who identify as LGB

Participants had the opportunity to learn about these types of bullying during a session organized by Mindy J. Erchull, PhD, and Michelle M. Perfect, PhD. I had the privilege of opening the session with a presentation describing why psychologists should address identity-based bullying as a social justice issue.

anti- bullying

Identity-based bullying includes behaviors that are rooted in discrimination. Unfortunately, most discourse within schools about bullying minimizes power relations based on social identities. Some schools intentionally avoid discussing issues of identity out of fear that the conversations will be too controversial. In these cases, the term bullying may be used in place of terms such as sexism, racism and homophobia to minimize discussions about systemic problems rooted in cultural stereotypes and oppression.

During my presentation, I asserted that psychologists should address identity-based bullying as a social justice issue–examining systemic causes so as to change not only the outcomes for individuals, but to transform the processes that lead to identity-based bullying. Identity-based bullying is both reflected in and influenced by cultural factors including legal and political battles, media messages and social movements. Many societal structures (including schools) often serve to reinforce and reproduce messages about inequality.
However, schools can be sites for intervention. At this session, Susan Swearer, PhD, described school-based approaches for identifying, preventing and intervening in bullying, sharing the promising research findings for a number of programs. She discussed how she has engaged multiple stakeholders, such as school nurses, to be involved in the battle against bullying.

Identity-based bullying is a societal problem and the most effective prevention and intervention strategies extend beyond changing any one individual (or a series of individuals). As scholars and mental health professionals, we have a responsibility to embrace such possibilities because all children deserve to attend schools that provide safe, supportive environments that reinforce equality and teach respect for all people.

Don’t Believe These 7 Bullying Myths

Sara MartinLeave a comment
Two teenage boys bullying their classmate in school hall.
Two teenage boys bullying their classmate in school hall.

Bullying has been a favorite media topic since 2011 when President Obama launched his anti-bullying campaign. But too often, the media’s reports on bullying are just plain wrong, according to Dorothy Espelage, PhD.

“It’s not grounded in science or evidence,” she said at a Friday plenary address on the topic at APA’s Annual Convention.

Espelage, a professor at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, who for 20 years has conducted research on bullying, homophobic teasing, sexual harassment, dating violence and gang violence, listed seven the myths the media are irresponsibly reporting:

Myth #1: Bullying is an epidemic. Wrong. Bullying rates vary from school to school and some kids go to schools where there is no bullying.

Myth #2: Bullying is linked to suicide. No, it’s just one of many predictors of suicide.

Myth #3: Bullies are budding criminals. Research shows bullies have diverse outcomes.

Myth #4: Bullies need to be punished –- the idea of “zero tolerance.” That doesn’t work, she said, because it ignores that bullying is a group phenomenon that starts around fifth grade.

Myth #5: Bullies come from dysfunctional families. Not true. Lots of bullies come from typical families.

Myth #6: Bullying is “hard-wired” in youth. Really wrong -– it’s malleable and it’s environment that matters when it comes to bullying.

Myth #7: Cyberbullying is unique. No, cyberbullying is just one mode of bullying. Bullying usually starts face to face and continues online.

The fact Espelage wishes more people would realize is that 1 out of 3 boys and 1 out 5 girls engage homophobic teasing –- name calling or phrases like, “That’s so gay.” It emerges in middle school, but often teachers don’t address it. The result? “We are setting the groundwork for sexual harassment in our schools,” Espelage said.