I’m confused. Are you saying he used all these opportunities in the media including a book he wrote (which you say was popular) to correct the ideas people had of the conclusion of the SPE?

Because if he did then it would be highly surprising to me that despite having written a popular book it took until a few years ago and a research paper (not a popular book, not media interviews, etc that he gave where he corrected the record) for people to realize that the conclusion they had drawn about the experiment was wrong?

So apparently what he couldn’t achieve through multiple popular media sources was conveyed very rapidly through a research paper?

Also that book, the original paper, and everything else promotes the “wrong” idea that everyone has had all this time. If in fact he had other intentions for the experiment from the beginning, he took 40+ years to communicate them.

Really I’m being needlessly kind here. He only changed his tune once called out, and his claims that this was what the experiment was about all along are in direct contrast to his communicated intent from the beginning. What do we call it when you publish something that says A, while knowing A is untrue? Scientific fraud.

And yet he did not use any of those opportunities to correct the most common perception of his work.

How is that supposed to be convincing?

What is the most common perception? I understand it as Zimbardo describes, maybe because I watched "Das Experiment".

That if you do nothing more than divide people into two groups—prisoners and prison guards—and nothing else (no instructions), the prison guards end up on their own accord abusing the prisoners so badly that the experiment needs to be prematurely ended.