This paper analyzes the 2015 film adaptation of the Stanford Prison Experiment and examines how narratives can create identification between audiences and characters whose actions are morally questionable. It discusses how the film uses emotional appeals, identification, and shifting perspectives to make the actions of the experiment's participants more understandable and justifiable to audiences. Through analyzing scenes that humanize characters and show how circumstances influenced their behaviors, the paper concludes that the film allows audiences to relate to and justify the actions of characters by seeing events through their perspectives. This identification shows how narratives can effectively persuade by making unjust actions seem more reasonable.

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Doubt Yourself: The Power of a Narrative
Noah McCathern
University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa
Spring 2016

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Abstract
This paper will examine the narrativization of Philip Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison
Experiment” covered in the 2015 film adaptation of the same name. Many people who look at
the Stanford Prison Experiments [SPE] from the 1970’s say I would never have treated another
human being like that; however, The 2015 film adapation of the SPE’s brought me to question
that statement. The paper will use Mcclure’s “Narrative Paradigm” (McClure, 2009) to draw
conclusions about human nature, and the persuasive power of a strong narrative. This paper will
serve as an investigation into the research question: how can a narrative create identification
between audience members and those characters who’s actions they find morally reprehensible?

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INTRODUCTION:
This paper will examine the narrativization of Philip Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison
Experiment” covered in the 2015 film adaptation of the same name. Many people who look at
the Stanford Prison Experiments [SPE] from the 1970’s say I would never have treated another
human being like that; however, The 2015 film adapation of the SPE’s brought me to question
that statement. This disidentification came after following the experiments in a narrativized form.
The paper will use Mcclure’s “Narrative Paradigm” (McClure, 2009) to draw conclusions about
human nature, and the persuasive power of a strong narrative. This paper will serve as a
definitive answer to the research question: how can a narrative be created that would bring an
individual to doubt themselves? The lens that will be most prominent in this paper is
Identification. Identification is comprehending or associating with another person’s perspective
or actions. I will be examining how humans identify with one another through narrativization.
ARTIFACT:
The artifact I will use to explain the power of narratives is Kyle Alvarez’s 2015 film
adaptation of the SPE. This film is particular to this case due to its empathic effects on its
viewers. This film adaptation gives its audience something much easier to identify with than just
a report somewhere, or still photos on a slide show. Alvarez presents the SPE’s from a
participant’s perspective, rather than from an observer’s. That is why his film is rhetoric and
needs to be examined. It presents a new perspective on its subject, and effectively adds impact to
the implications and conclusions reached by Zimbardo and his team of psychologists. The
character that best exemplifies the qualities being examined is the guard participant called “John
Wayne”. He starts his introductory survey to the experiment by saying that he would prefer to be

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a prisoner because “Everyone hates the guards”. By the end of the experiment however, John
Wayne has become the guard that is most abusive to the prisoners. He humiliates them, feminizes
them, and degrades them. He wants them to lose their self-image. This is a complete turn from
the John Wayne that we met a mere 6 days before, and that change in this character, and the
narrative’s ability to identify that change with the audience is what this paper is based on.
METHOD:
The method I will be using to explain how narratives can be such powerful sources of
persuasion is a generative technique that comes from the artifact, rather than a set method of
rhetorical criticism. I will be using McClure’s “Narrative Paradigm” as a sort of reference in
following and analyzing the narrative itself, followed by a breakdown of why this narrative
proves itself to be so much more persuasive than the objective scientific journal write-ups that
were used to document these events in years’ past. McClure’s Narrative paradigm is different
from the traditional narrative style of rhetorical criticism in that it’s focus is on two things. First,
all human beings are basically story tellers, that values, emotions, and aesthetic considerations
xground our beliefs and behaviors. Secondly, it says that our decision making and
communications are based on subjectivity, and “good reasons” or that a different situation will
require a different action, that you have to be in the moment to understand why something was
done the way it was. (McClure, 2009). I will be applying a lens of identification for the
evaluation of the artifact, looking for important pieces of the discourse that allow the audience to
more closely relate to the characters and their actions. For example: in gangster movies, we often
see family feuds and retaliational violence. This violence is often not viewed as murder, but
rather as a justified action following grievous provocation. This shows that being able to identify,

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and relate to a character is essential when it comes to a strong narrative persuasion. This is the
type of thing I will be looking for when analyzing the SPE movie. These pieces will include
emotional appeals, identification, and perception. Emotional appeals are when the director
includes a scene in the movie that he knows will pull on the heart strings of the audience.
Identification is when an audience identifies with or can consubstantiate themselves with the
characters presented. Perception is how the audience views the film, like who’s point of view the
narrative is coming from.
ANALYSIS:
EMOTIONAL APPEALS:
The movie follows the lives of the participants and researchers surrounding the
Stanford Prison Experiment that occurred in August of 1971. The movie opens with the head
researcher, professor Zimbardo, having a romantic time with his girlfriend and ex-student. They
appear to be in love, and he seems to treat her right. This is purposeful, in that the film producer
did not need to include this in the film to tell the story of the experiments. In fact, it was actually
a superfluous scene as far as the actual plot of the movie goes. What this shows us is that the
director is trying to show the audience the human side of Zimbardo, the side that the audience
can relate to. This relation of the audience to the character begins to form a powerful bond. This
is done again in the scenes where the participants speak with their loved ones, and are arrested in
front of their families. This is purposeful. A study recently performed by the Centre for Language
Studies showed that this relation of the audience to a character can greatly influence the
audience’s attitude towards that character’s actions. (Hoeken, 2014). This study showed that an
audience that identified with a story character was more likely to percieve an unjust outcome as

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acceptable, than an audience that did not relate to the story character. This is because the
audience can see bits and pieces of themselves in the characters. This means that the audience
could see themselves in the same situation as the story, and therefore could more easily justify
the actions of the characters to their own actions. This changes rhetoric by changing the way we
report events. When these experiments happened, they were published in scientific journals, dry
and full of statistics and numbers. The story then moved onto newspapers, which added a bit of
color to the events, but never fleshed out any real characters. Then the events were taught to
students on slides of pictures and rolls of silent film, but these also never made any attempts at
providing a narrative or creating relateable characters. It wasn’t until Kyle Alvarez’s film
adaptation that a narrative was constructed, characters were built and displayed, and emotions
were brought into the mix. This new mixing of emotions into previously objective reporting was
unheard of until recently, and film adaptations of true events have become immensely popular
since.
IDENTIFICATION:
The movie then goes on to the interviewing process of the experiments, where every
single participant said they would prefer to be a prisoner than a guard. This is a huge piece of
narrative persuasion because it shows the status quo of the participants. They aren’t power
hungry, violent, cruel people. These are just college kids looking to make some money before
school starts again. This “uniqueness” or setting up of a base line is essential to see the
transformation that takes place in the characters of the participants. The characters are
introduced, and their interview scene really starts the audience’s bond with the participants of the
study.

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The next important scene is the scene where the researchers randomly assign the
participants to their new positions as either prisoners or guards. This scene could’ve been cut out,
shortened, or otherwise edited, but the director kept it in full, as a message to the audience. This
message is that that they had no say in who got what position. They show an extended bit of the
researchers flipping a coin, which is important to the audience because it shows that the
participants weren’t chosen based on previous inclinations, or judgements of character, but rather
that they were all basically the same kind of person, and that their situation altered their
character. This is essential to the audience’s identification with the characters because it shows
that the events could have happened to anyone, regardless of character traits, past actions, and
any other seperating factors really. Their circumstances dictated their actions. This is a crucial
component to a persuasive narrative because it establishes an anxiety within the audience, a fear
that the events described could happen to anyone. That the results and findings of the study apply
to everyone. This makes the behaviors that are shown in the narrative seem reasonable and even
just in the eyes of the audience. The audience could put themselves in the character’s shoes.
PERCEPTION:
In the beginning of the experiments, the prisoners are brought in to “intake” and the
guards follow a script by which they are told they should follow to act like proper “guards”. At
first, they follow it to the letter, obviously uncomfortable with the tasks they are having the
prisoners perform, but after the first day the guards begin to go off script, creating their own
rules, punishments, having unscheduled line-ups, unwritten rules, and more. This is the start of
the change that takes place in the guards. They begin to realize that they have unlimited power
within their role as guards. They can do as they please without retribution. They have unlimited

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and unrestricted power within their role. This is dangerous because it shows the audience what
led to the radical behaviors exhibited from all the participants later in the experiments. This
abuse of power is a very relatable idea to audiences everywhere, as everyone knows and can
identify with a person that is carried away with their own authority. This shows the inciting
incidents for the rapid progression of the guards’ character from innocent naivety towards jaded
cruelty. Small abuses of prisoners become common, even banal little incidents, and so the
punishments become larger and larger, more and more humiliating as time goes on. Getting
carried away with exponential growth like this is quite common in the world, athletes always
want to get stronger, so they do more weight at the gym than the day before. This stepping up
type of progression is a powerful motivator when it comes to abusive behaviors. It is very
destructive. This is apparent in drug abuse as well, with heroin addicts, each dose needs to be
larger than the last in order for the drug to have its euphoric effects on the abuser. This stepping
up is to chase the feeling that the user got when they had no tolerance to the drug. This is how
overdoses happen. This exponential acceleration of the narrative is an imperative part of the
persuasive efficacy of these types of films. This is called a “slippery slope”, and it can make
many actions that would seem absurd at the beginning of a narrative, reasonable by the end.
These slippery slopes are used in lots of films that attempt to document real-life events because
of the anxiety that can be cast upon the audience from the fear that things will progress too far.
Later in the film, the graduate researchers come to Zimbardo asking to cancel the
experiment, and what stands out to me is his reasoning for not wanting to cancel it. The movie
does an excellent job of setting the audience up to see how important this experiment was to
Zimbardo. This was going to be his legacy, his contribution to society, his big accomplishment

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that would keep him in conversations long after his death. When you look at it that way, it is very
easy to see why Zimbardo would hesitate to call off the experiment. When reading the published
lab report for psychology class, my class had a discussion about why the experiment wasn’t
called off the second things got physical, or that people were harmed, and no one could come up
with a reason. Now, having watched the film, the audience can easily follow the motivations
surrounding Zimbardo, and why he thought he was justified in his actions. This relates to the
main idea of this paper, what can make an audience identify with characters who’s actions are
unjust? Following this narrative it becomes incredibly clear, that if an audience identifies with a
character, their judgements and ideas can be altered by the character’s actions. What once was a
huge malpractice suit against Zimbardo now appears to be more of a man’s defense of what he
hopes will be his legacy. This is because we are viewing the narrative through his eyes, his
perspective.
CONCLUSION:
The findings of my analysis definitively correlate an audience’s identification with the
emotions of a character, to the justification of unjust actions performed by that character. The
narrative provided by Alvarez’s Stanford Prison Experiment, allows the audience to become
deeply connected with the characters in the story. The audience follows the progression of the
events in a way only recently developed, shedding new light onto the motivations behind the
events, and their consequences. This apathy where the audience can get into the character’s
perspective and see their justifications for their actions is a very powerful appeal in narrative
persuasion, where McClure says “narratives remind us of who we are and who we have been,

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and who we may become”(McClure, 2009). These narratives relate objective events to audiences
in subjective terms, and add emotion to an otherwise emotionless argument. They can be used to
justify radical ideas, actions, and events, and that is how this type of rhetoric has become so
effectively persuasive in the world of discourse. Bringing emotion into the reporting of otherwise
emotionless events helps an audience to relate to the characters actions within the narrative, and
can be used to make cautionary tales that tell us the dangers of human nature. Further, narratives
can be used to document things that before were completely left out of mainstream public
attention, such as medical advances, vaccine developments, and more. These things would
normally be left to scientific journals, but now can be displayed in a format that the general
public will more likely be able to consume. This benefits our society by bringing digestible
information to the people, allowing them to better themselves through learning and education.

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REFERENCES:
'It’s still a prison to me': A new dramatic film portrayal of the Stanford Prison Experiment. 2016.
By: Dunn, Dana S., PsycCRITIQUES, 15540138, 20160101, Vol. 61, Issue 3
Resurrecting the Narrative Paradigm: Identification and the Case of Young Earth Creationism
By: K. McClure RSQ: Rhetoric Society Quarterly. Spring 2009, Vol. 39 Issue 2,
p189-211. 23p.
The role of identification and perception of just outcome in evoking emotions in narrative
persuasion. 2014. Hoeken, Sinkeldam. Journal of Communication. Oct2014, Vol. 64
Issue 5, p935-955. 21p. 2 Charts. Communication Source DOI: 10.1111/jcom.12114
“The Stanford Prison Experiment”, 2015 Film Adaption. Directed by Kyle Alvarez