In an episode from 2012, we looked at what Sleep No More and the Stanford Prison Experiment can tell us about who we really are. SOURCES:Felix Barrett, artistic director of Punchdrunk.Steven Levitt, professor of economics at the University of Chicago.Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus at Stanford University. RESOURCES:“Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the ‘Stanford Prison Experiment,’ dies at 91,” by Melissa De Witte (Stanford Report, 2024).“Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment,” by Thibault Le Texier (American Psychologist, 2019).“The Lifespan of a Lie,” by Ben Blum (GEN, 2018).Punchdrunk. EXTRAS:“How Is Live Theater Still Alive?” by Freakonomics Radio (2025)."Why Is There So Much Fraud in Academia?" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
Full Episode
Hey there, Stephen Dubner. We are in the middle of a new series on the economics of live theater, which got me thinking about another episode we made way back in 2012 about the psychology of one particularly fascinating piece of theater. Such a fascinating piece that it only closed finally in early 2025. The episode also gets into one of the most famous experiments in the history of psychology.
So I hope you enjoy this bonus episode. As always, thanks for listening. Sometimes you see a piece of theater and it completely scrambles your brain.
I remember I was at one of the first performances of Hair.
That's Philip Zimbardo, the renowned psychologist.
Seeing hair scrambled his brain because... The performers start walking on the seats over your head and walking down the aisles. And that, I had never experienced that before. And it was really troubling, exhilarating, confusing. Because, again, hair was going to confuse you.
They're going to sing songs about masturbation and black girls having sex with white guys and white guys having sex with... So essentially, before the play began... What they did is set up to say, this is going to shock you. This is going to be off your usual radar. So don't come expecting traditional theater. This is something new. I still remember that. It was like 40 years ago. We starve, look.
Again, that was Philip Zimbardo. Does that name ring a bell? If you ever took Psychology 101 in college, think back to that. You remember reading about the Stanford Prison Experiment? That was Zimbardo's experiment back in 1971, in which some student volunteers played the role of prisoners and others acted as guards. Things got ugly fast. Zimbardo died in 2024 at the age of 91.
In his everyday life, he liked messing with people.
In many settings I'm in, I tweak my environment to see what would happen. What would happen if, you know, you go into a restaurant and the waiter gives you a thing and you say, I'd like to start with dessert. And he says, what? I'd like to start with dessert. You've got a really good dessert menu. Sometimes they say, no, you can't. No, you have to start with the appetizer.
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