S.P.E. on lod

THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT ON LOD.

A Linked Open Data project

Study of Domain

IDEA

student being picked up by the police

August 15, 1971 - Palo Alto, California. Early morning.

Twelve college students are picked up from their homes by police, placed under arrest, and brought with lights and sirens to a temporary jail set up in the basement of Stanford University.

Despite the appearances, it is all about research on the psychology of detention led by Stanford's professor Philip G. Zimbardo.
Twenty-four volunteers have agreed to spend the next two weeks recreating life in a correctional facility. Twelve of them are officers, twelve are prisoners.

The prisoners are stripped naked and booked, forced to wear caps, aprons, and chains. Identified only by their prisoner numbers, they are not individuals anymore.
Officers soon learn how to do their new job. With their mirror sunglasses providing anonymity, some of them begin to control the scant food supplies, restrict inmates’ restroom usage, and their brutal approach increases as tensions arise.

The experiment was intended to run for two weeks. Due to the emotional breakdowns of the prisoners and excessive aggression of the guards, it was shut down after only six days.

zimbardo's pic

The research raises an essential question still relevant today: is evil produced by the environment or by the people who live in it? Zimbardo's appalling conclusion is that individuals may easily turn evil when they feel nameless and have power over depersonalized others. And this happens more frequently than we may think.

Following Milgram's previous studies, Zimbardo's experiment fueled the long-standing debate on human nature and the eternal clash between good and evil.
The interest that followed was simply unstoppable, both in the academic world and in pop culture. Documentaries, books, films, songs, and works of art were inspired by those events, increasing their popularity.
As well as numerous criticisms and investigations that have questioned - and still continue to question - the validity of the whole experiment.

This linked open data project was born with the intention of bringing together the most significant examples of this complex network of connections.

Philip G. Zimbardo

from The Lucifer Effect

Most of us perceive Evil as an entity, a quality that is inherent in some people and not in others. Bad seeds ultimately produce bad fruits as their destinies unfold... Upholding a Good-Evil dichotomy also takes ‘good people’ off the responsibility hook. They are freed from even considering their possible role in creating, sustaining, perpetuating, or conceding to the conditions that contribute to delinquency, crime, vandalism, teasing, bullying, rape, torture, terror, and violence.

Stanley Milgram

from Obedience to Authority

The essence in obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as an instrument for carrying out another person's wishes and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions.

Ben Blum

from The Lifespan of a Lie

The appeal of the SPE seems to go deeper than its scientific validity, perhaps because it tells us a story about ourselves that we desperately want to believe: that we, as individuals, cannot be held accountable for the sometimes reprehensible things we do. As troubling as it might seem to accept Zimbardo's fallen vision of human nature, it is also profoundly liberating. It means. we're off the hook. Our actions are determined by circumstance. Our fallibility is situational. Just as the Gospel promised to absooulve us of our sins if we would only believe, the SPE offered a form of redemption tailer-made for a scientific era, and we embraced it.

Philip G. Zimbardo

from The Lucifer Effect

Evil consists in intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent others—or using one’s authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behalf. In short, it is knowing better but doing worse.

Study of Domain

ITEMS

The Items section summarizes the ten items that were taken into consideration. They were selected according to relevance and heterogeneity criteria in order to provide completeness to the project. For each item, essential metadata, a short description, and a reference link are provided.

The Luficer Effect, book
"THE LUCIFER EFFECT: UNDERSTANDING HOW GOOD PEOPLE TURN EVIL"
book

The 2007 book, written by professor Philip Zimbardo, represents the main source of information about the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.

learn more
Quiet Rage, documentary
"QUEIT RAGE: THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT"
documentary

Relesed in 1992, the documentary summarizes in 50 minutes the SPE, since its very beginning, through official materials. It was directed by Ken Musen with Zimbardo's collaboration.

learn more
Forever Jung, song
"FOREVER JUNG"
song

The song by Caparezza starts with a reference to the SPE, rehashing an original source. The inspiration taken from Zimbardo's experiment can also be found in the general themes of the album in which the piece appears, "Prisoner 709".

learn more
Two guards with rebel leader, photo
"TWO GUARDS WITH REBEL LEADER. 57, SLIDE"
photograph

The photograph was taken during the experiment and used by professor Zimbardo for his slideshow.

learn more
Rules for prisoners, document
"CONSENT FORM"
document

Before participating in the study, the students signed a Consent Form. It's a paramount piece of documentation that has been part of considerations and criciticsm after the experiment.

learn more
The Stanford Prison Experiment, movie
"THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT"
movie

Created with the close participation of Dr. Zimbardo himself, the 2015 film is a docudrama directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez. The movie features a cast of rising young actors such as Ezra Miller and Keir Gilchrist.

learn more
Circle Limit IV, artwork
"CIRCLE LIMIT IV (HEAVEN AND HELL)"
artwork

The last piece of the four circle limits by M. C. Esher was completed in July 1960. The illusion created by the artist was functional for Zimbardo while explaining the inescapable bond between Good and Evil in the first chapter of his book: Once aware of the congruence between good and evil, you cannot see only one and not the other.

learn more
Behavioral Study of Obedience, audio recording
"ORIENTATION OF GUARDS"
audio recording

An original audio recorded during the experiment. Better known as Tape 2, this audio has been used and cited during investigations on the experiment. It was largely used in Le Texier's work.

learn more
Behavioral Study of Obedience, scientific article
"DEBUNKING THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT"
scientific article

The SPE is still surrounded by as much popularity as it is criticism. The most famous and reliable of the latter is certainly the 2019 article by Thibault Le Texier. The French director conducted the first in-depth analysis of the experiment archives, resulting in seven substantiated findings, debunking the whole myth.

learn more
The Lucifer Effect, digital artwork
"THE LUCIFER EFFECT"
digital artwork

A book cover illustration design for the homonymous Zimbardo's work. This piece is part of the 2021's exihibition of digital collages by Matt O'Halloran, an illustration student at Plymouth College of Art.

learn more

Knowledge Organization

CONCEPTUAL MAP

Once the items were identified, it was paramount to immediately understand what and how many relationships existed between them. The resulting complex network of entities has then been outlined through a Conceptual Map. Although only a preliminary sketch, the map provides a clear overview and general grasp of the scenario studied in this project.

Conceptual Map

Knowledge Organization

E/R MODEL

Thereafter, an abstraction of the Conceptual Map have brought to an E / R model whose formalism perfectly illustrates the items and relationships involved.

E/R Model

Simine Vazire

physchology professor at the University of California

We must stop celebrating this work. It’s anti-scientific. Get it out of textbooks.

Dave Eschelman

a former Stanford "guard", also known with the nickname of John Wayne

I set out with a definite plan in mind, to try to force the action, force something to happen, so that the researchers would have something to work with. After all, what could they possibly learn from guys sitting around like it was a country club?

Craig W. Haney

psychology professor at UC Santa Cruz, who was a graduate student of Zimbardo's in 1971 and a principal researcher on the prison experiment

I try to talk to prisoners about what their lives are really like, and I don't think I would have come to that kind of empathy had I not seen what I saw at Stanford,” he said. “If someone had said that in six days you can take 10 healthy college kids, in good health and at the peak of resilience, and break them down by subjecting them to things that are commonplace and relatively mild by the standards of real prisons -- I'm not sure I would have believed it if I hadn't seen it happen.

Stanley Milgram

from Obedience to Authority

Control the manner in which a man interprets his world, and you have gone a long way toward controlling his behavior.

Metadata

METADATA ANALYSIS

# Item Name Object Type Provider Metadata Standard
01 Forever Jung Song MusicBrainz MMD
02 The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil Book Internet Archive MARCXML
03 The Stanford Prison Experiment Movie IMDb Schema.org (a)
04 Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment Documentary IMDb Schema.org (a)
05 Two guards with rebel leader Photograph Stanford University. Libraries. Department of Special Collections and University Archives MARC
06 Consent Form Document Stanford University. Libraries. Department of Special Collections and University Archives MARC
07 The Lucifer Effect Digital Artwork Arts Lab CDWA (a)
08 Circle Limit IV (Heaven and Hell) Artwork National Gallery of Canada CDWA
09 Orientation of Guards Audio Recording Stanford University. Libraries. Department of Special Collections and University Archives MARC
10 Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment Scientific Article American Psychological Association PsycNet® Schema.org (a)

Each identified metadata standard name has a link to the page where the provider declares its use.

(a) indicates that the standard has been applied by us because the provider has no statement about it.

Metadata

METADATA ALIGNMENT

In the Metadata Alignment’s phase, some useful properties were taken from each metadata standard identified during the Metadata Analysis.

DCTerms, even if not found in the descriptions of the items, was selected as a starter for the alignment. Dublin Core is in fact one of the most used formats on the web for describing resources and has been indicated as a standard format within the Open Archive Initiative. DCTerms extends the 15 core DC classes.

Regarding MARC and MARCXML, no distinction was made. Although they are referred to as separate standards, they actually share the same classes, just in different formats. Furthermore, MARC 21 has been inserted in the alignment table being it the most recent version and the one currently documented, which integrates some different national variants used mostly in Anglo-Saxon countries.

For accessibility reasons, all the properties have been divided into four categories: WHO, WHERE, WHEN, and WHAT.

WHO

Property DCTerms MMD Schema.org MARC21 CDWA
Creator creator <artist><name> CreativeWork.creator
CreativeWork.author
Movie.director		 100 1# $a Creator Description
Creator Identity
Creator Role
Publisher publisher <label> CreativeWork.publisher 264 #0 $b Creator Description
Creator Identity
Creator Role
Contributor contributor <name><namePart> CreativeWork.contributor
CreativeWork.Contributor.Role		 700 1# $a Creator Description
Creator Identity
Creator Role
Institution rightsHolder N/A CreativeWork.archivedAt 561 $5 Owner/Agent
Owner/Agent Role

WHERE

Property DCTerms MMD Schema.org MARC21 CDWA
Place of production coverage.spatial <place-list><place-element><place> CreativeWork.locationCreated
Movie.countryOfOrigin		 264 #0 $a Creation Place/Original Location
Place Qualifier
Place of publication coverage.spatial N/A PublicationEvent.location 264 #1 $a Creation Place/Original Location
Place Qualifier
Current place LocationPeriodOrJurisdiction.location N/A Place 852 $a Current Location Description
Repository/Geographic Location
Contained in relation.isPartOf <release> CreativeWork.isPartOf 773 Related Work Label/Identification
Work Relationship Type
Place depicted coverage.spatial N/A CreativeWork.contentLocation 651 $a Place/Location Label/Identification

WHEN

Property DCTerms MMD Schema.org MARC21 CDWA
Creation date date.created CreativeWork.dateCreated 264 #0 $c Creation Date
Date Qualifier
Publishing date date.issued <release><date> CreativeWork.datePublished 264 #1 $c Creation Date
Date Qualifier
Period depicted coverage.temporal N/A CreativeWork.temporalCoverage 045 Styles/Periods/Groups/Movements

WHAT

Property DCTerms MMD Schema.org MARC21 CDWA
Title title <release><title> Thing.name 130 $a Title Text
Identifier identifier <track id> Thing.idientifier 020 - 022 - 024 Repository Numbers
Number Type
Description description N/A Thing.description 3XX Descriptive Note Text
Abstract Description
Subject subject N/A CreativeWork.about 6XX Subject Display
Abstract description.abstract N/A Article.abstract 520 3# $a Subject Display
Language language <work><language-list><language>
<text-representation language>		 CreativeWork.inLanguage
Movie.subtitleLanguage		 041 Inscription Language
Material support medium N/A CreativeWork.material 340 ## $e Materials/Techniques Flag
Materials/Techniques Name
Dimensions format N/A CreativeWork.size 300 ## $c Dimensions Type
Dimensions Description
Technique / Genre type <genre-list><genre> CreativeWork.genre 340 ## $d Materials/Techniques Flag
Materials/Techniques Name
Duration format.extent <duration> Movie.duration
MediaObject.duration
MusicRelease.duration		 306 ## $a Dimensions Type
Dimensions Description
Start page N/A N/A Article.pageStart 773 $q N/A
End page N/A N/A Article.pageEnd N/A N/A
Citation identifier.bibliographicCitation N/A CreativeWork.citation 510 $a Related Textual References
Word count format.extent N/A Article.wordCount N/A N/A
Access rights rights.accessRights N/A DigitalDocument.hasDigitalDocumentPermission 506 N/A


Knowledge Organization

THEORETICAL MODEL

The Theoretical Model shows in detail the list of properties identified for each item and the relationships between all the domain entities included in the project. Among these entities, some were added at this stage, in the process of enriching the information related to the specific goal of this section.

For each object, the team tried to answer the questions WHO, WHERE, WHEN, and WHAT by identifying the properties on some authorative online resources, such as Wikidata, DBpedia, TMDb, Last.FM, Getty Vocabularies, WorldCat, etc. The legend below the model specifies the graphic differences applied to the parameters answering each question.

In this phase some decisions needed to be made, like whether to keep the individual items separeted or group them into classes (e.g., whether to unify all the textual items in a single general category); at what level of kinship to stop the process of identifying entities; at what level of detail to stop when choosing properties; which data types to choose specifically for dates.

In the end, the only items unified have been the two artworks (the analogic and the digital ones), being them both representable through the same properties. Uncertain about the other types, at this stage the team left them separated, well aware that moving on to the Conceptual Model could have raised further and possibly more appropriate mergers. In addition to that, the production event has been separated for the sake of representation. This choice was in fact made in order to avoid repeating the properties common to all the items each time.

The work done on the Theoretical Model finally allowed the team to expand the initial E / R Model by adding entities and relationships coherently with the domain and the choices previously made.



THEORETICAL MODEL


AN ALTERNATIVE THEORETICAL MODEL: FROM RELATIONAL TO GRAPH


Enhanced E/R Model

Knowledge Organization

CONCEPTUAL MODEL

Transitioning from the Theoretical Model to the Conceptual Model, the team identified the most suitable ontologies in order to represent in detail the project's items. As a starting point, some tools covered during the course were exploited, in particular the Seeing Standards classification scheme of the Metadata Universe and the Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV) search engine. The most common ontologies were preferred to ensure data interoperability.

FOAF (an acronym of Friend Of A Friend) is an ontology describing persons, their activities and their relations to other people and objects.

Schema.org is a collaborative, community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet, on web pages, in email messages, and beyond.

The Dublin Core Terms lists the current set of the Dublin Core vocabulary, i.e. the 15 core elements plus all the qualified terms. It may be used for multiple purposes, from simple resource description to combining metadata vocabularies of different metadata standards, to providing interoperability for metadata vocabularies in the linked data cloud and Semantic Web implementations.

The International Council of Museums CONCEPTUAL REFERENCE MODEL (CIDOC-CRM), now ISO/CD21127, is a core ontology that aims at enabling information exchange and integration between heterogeneous sources of cultural heritage information, archives and libraries.

The Bibliographic Ontology Specification (BIBO) provides main concepts and properties for describing citations and bibliographic references (i.e. quotes, books, articles, etc).

Agreements Ontology is designed to model 'agreements' which are social contracts that include licenses, laws, contracts, standards and definitional metadata. Agreements' purposes are to effect the behaviour of Agents that use Entities or undertake Activities.

The Music Ontology provides a vocabulary for publishing and linking a wide range of music-related data on the Web.

Knowledge Representation

DATA DESCRIPTION


SONG

Subject Predicate Object
ForeverJungrdf:typemo:Track
ForeverJungdcterms:language"it"
ForeverJungmo:Genre"hip hop"
ForeverJungmo:comtain_sample_fromStanfordPrisonExperiment
ForeverJungmo:duration"4.22 min"
ForeverJungmo:label"UniversalMusicItalia"
ForeverJungmo:producer"Caparezza"
ForeverJungschema:aboutStanfordPrisonExperiment


BOOK

Subject Predicate Object
TheLuciferEffectrdf:typeschema:Book
TheLuciferEffectdcterms:aboutStanfordPrisonExperiment
TheLuciferEffectdcterms:language"en"
TheLuciferEffectdcterms:title"The Lucifer Effect"
TheLuciferEffectowl:sameAshttps://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q9251424&oldid=1473095482
TheLuciferEffectschema:IsPartOfMovie
TheLuciferEffectschema:authorPhilip_Zimbardo
TheLuciferEffectschema:isbn978-1-4000-6411-3
TheLuciferEffectschema:mentionsEscher_Artwork


MOVIE

Subject Predicate Object
Movierdf:typedbo:movie
Moviebibo:director"Kyle Patrick Alvarez"
Moviedcterms:language"en"
Moviedcterms:title"TheStanfordPrisonExperiment"
Movieowl:sameAshttps://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Effetto_Lucifero_(film)&oldid=106863745
Movieschema:actor"Billy Crudup"
Movieschema:actor"Ezra Miller"
Movieschema:actor"Michael Angarano"
Movieschema:contentReferenceTimeSPETimeSpan
Movieschema:datePublished"January 26, 2015"
Movieschema:hasPartTheLuciferEffect
Movieschema:isBasedOnStanfordPrisonExperiment
Movieschema:productioncompany"Abandon Pictures"


DOCUMENTARY

Subject Predicate Object
QuietRagerdf:typeschema:MediaObject
QuietRagedcterms:contributorPhilip_Zimbardo
QuietRagedcterms:language"en"
QuietRagedcterms:subjectStanfordPrisonExperiment
QuietRagedcterms:title"Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment"
QuietRageschema:datePublished"1992"
QuietRageschema:recordedAtStanfordUniversity
QuietRagescherma:temporalCoverageSPETimeSpan


PHOTOGRAPH

Subject Predicate Object
Photographrdf:typeschema:Photograph
Photographrdf:subjectParticipants
Photographschema:aboutStanfordPrisonExperiment
Photographschema:archivedAthttps://purl.stanford.edu/ff587pg1474
Photographschema:authorPhilip_Zimbardo
Photographschema:contentReferenceTimeSPETimeSpan
Photographschema:recordedAtStanfordUniversity


DOCUMENT

Subject Predicate Object
Documentrdf:typeagr:Agreement


DIGITAL ARTWORK

Subject Predicate Object
Digital_Artworkrdf:typeschema:VisualArtwork
Digital_Artworkschema:artMedium"Digital_Collage"
Digital_Artworkschema:artist"Matt O’Halloran"
Digital_Artworkschema:hasPartTheLuciferEffect
Digital_Artworkschema:title"TheLuciferEffect"


ARTWORK

Subject Predicate Object
Escher_Artworkrdf:typeschema:VisualArtwork
Escher_Artworkdcterms:title"Circle Limit IV (Heaven and Hell)"
Escher_Artworkowl:sameAshttps://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q18711278&oldid=1039721669
Escher_Artworkschema:artMedium"print"
Escher_Artworkschema:artist"M.C. Escher"
Escher_Artworkschema:dateCreated"July 1960"
Escher_Artworkschema:locationCreated"Netherlands"
Escher_Artworkschema:material"woodcut in black and taupe on laid japan paper"
Escher_Artworkschema:width"48.2 x 53 cm"


AUDIO RECORDING

Subject Predicate Object
AudioRecordingrdf:typeschema:AudioObject
AudioRecordingdcterms:language"en"
AudioRecordingschema:RecordedAtStanfordUniversity
AudioRecordingschema:aboutStanfordPrisonExperiment
AudioRecordingschema:authorPhilip_Zimbardo
AudioRecordingschema:duration"45,44 min"
AudioRecordingschema:isPartOf"StanfordPrisonExperiment"
AudioRecordingschema:temporalCoverageSPETimeSpan


SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE

Subject Predicate Object
Debunking_Stanford_experimentrdf:typeschema:ScholarlyArticle
Debunking_Stanford_experimentdcterms:language"en"
Debunking_Stanford_experimentschema:archivedAthttps://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Famp0000401
Debunking_Stanford_experimentschema:authorThibault_Le_Texier
Debunking_Stanford_experimentschema:copyrightYear"2019"
Debunking_Stanford_experimentschema:mentionsAudioRecording
Debunking_Stanford_experimentschema:mentionsDocument

Knowledge Representation

RDF PRODUCTION

URI Definition

Referring to the single items of the project's domain and in order to link them together inside the RDF file, the team decided to create unique names for all the entities in form of https URIs.

Moreover, some imaginary paths were designed for them: /items for the 10 items and /events, /timespans, /persons, /institutions, and /websites for the other ones, depending on their nature.

  • https://spelod.github.io/items/Digital_Artwork
  • https://spelod.github.io/items/Escher_Artwork
  • https://spelod.github.io/items/Debunking_Stanford_Experiment
  • https://spelod.github.io/items/Movie
  • https://spelod.github.io/items/Forever_Jung
  • https://spelod.github.io/items/The_Lucifer_Effect
  • https://spelod.github.io/items/Audio_Recording
  • https://spelod.github.io/items/Document
  • https://spelod.github.io/items/Quiet_Rage
  • https://spelod.github.io/items/Photograph

  • https://spelod.github.io/events/Stanford_Prison_Experiment
  • https://spelod.github.io/timespans/SPETimeSpan
  • https://spelod.github.io/persons/Philip_Zimbardo
  • https://spelod.github.io/persons/institutions/Stanford_University
  • https://spelod.github.io/persons/institutions/persons/Participants
  • https://spelod.github.io/persons/institutions/persons/Thibault_Le_Texier
  • https://spelod.github.io/persons/institutions/websites/SPE_Website



TTL Serialization

Knowledge Representation

RDF VISUALIZATION

Knowledge Graph

Team

CHECK OUR TEAM

Diego Chillo

Andrea Zanetti

Laura Travaglini