Cruel, humiliating, sadistic... and made for TV

No women were asked to volunteer for The Experiment. It was felt that they would be too physically and mentally vulnerable, and that their safety could not be guaranteed. It seems the experience of taking part in the BBC's latest reality-TV venture was a gruelling one.

The idea was to lock 15 men up together for 14 days in a mock-prison. The men would be divided into 10 "prisoners" and five "guards" – with the possibility that brutality, victimisation and acts of sadism would ensue. And it would all be televised and, in due course, broadcast.

The idea originated with an American academic, who created a similar regime with 18 student volunteers in the summer of 1971. That experiment catapulted the Stanford University psychology lecturer Dr Philip Zimbardo into the annals of academic infamy. Zimbardo converted a wing of the Stanford psychology department into a prison, and created an artificial regime that became so brutal, so quickly, that the study had to be cut short after only six days. By then the guards had begun frequent beatings of the prisoners, sexual degradation through night-time strip searches, and institutionalised humiliation – such as ordering the prisoners to clean the toilets with their hands.

When it was revealed in October that the BBC was to recreate the Zimbardo experiment (with the universities of Exeter and St Andrews), eyebrows were raised; not least by Zimbardo himself, who still feels guilty about what happened 30 years ago. "That kind of research is now considered unethical and should not be redone just for sensational TV," he said. "I am amazed that a British university psychology department would be involved."

But the BBC went ahead with the experiment, which ended just before Christmas – early. This time, it reached the 12-day mark before it was brought to a premature halt. There has been no official explanation, and those who took part are sworn to secrecy. But word that has leaked out suggests that the TV version encountered much the same problems as the original experiment. A friend of one participant – a "prisoner" – quotes him as saying, "It was nasty. We had no idea where we were. We were blindfolded and taken in a blacked-out van. We were all scared. They tried to take away our character, our personality."

The general picture seems to be of tiny cells, cold showers, appalling food, and regular punishment and humiliation by guards. (One source compared the experience to Guantanamo Bay.) For the full details, readers will have to wait until the four-part series is broadcast in April. One suggestion is that eventually the prisoners revolted and overpowered the guards – at which point the organisers, perhaps fearing serious violence, intervened.

This should come as no surprise. Zimbardo's research suggests just such an unpleasant conclusion, and so do other recent reality-TV programmes. But if there's one thing that Survivor, Temptation Island and all the other Big Brother clones have taught us, it's that conflict means ratings. And at the BBC, ratings are now the top priority.

More disturbingly, conflict alone no longer seems to be enough: to make a real impact, producers seem to believe, cruelty is required. This is evident in The Chair – a US programme shortly to appear on British television, in which players are wired up to a heart monitor and asked questions when their heart rate is within a certain range. Added scares are thrown in: a live alligator suspended a few centimetres from one's face, for example. Similar in tone is Fox's The Chamber, in which contestants answer questions while being subjected to uncomfortable and frightening conditions. Marginally less cruel, but arguably more grotesque is another BBC production: The Trench, out in March, in which volunteers recreate the experience of living in a First World War trench (complete with an artificial stench of rotting bodies, tear gas to simulate mustard gas, and the occasional removal of a participant to simulate death).

Such programmes are clearly in appalling taste. But there is a more serious problem. As Neil Durkin of Amnesty International (referring specifically to The Experiment) puts it: "A programme like this runs the risk of trivialising these issues as entertainment." The BBC insists that all volunteers for The Experiment were subjected to a lengthy selection process to weed out those prone to "antisocial" behaviour. When the programme advertised for volunteers last autumn no money was offered. Instead, a low-key advertisement stated that volunteers should expect "exercise, tasks, hardship, hunger, solitude and anger". The producers say that they wanted to avoid attracting the type who would play to the gallery in the vain hope of being the next Nasty Nick; but Zimbardo remarked before the BBC's experiment started: "Obviously they are doing the study in the hopes that high drama will be created, as in my original study; if not, it will be boring."

Alex Haslam of Exeter University, one of the two psychologists who oversaw the project, insists that The Experiment is both worthwhile and ethical. "I think it makes powerful, gripping television," he says. "But it's also a fascinating piece of psychological research. We were always trying to steer between the Scylla and Charybdis of utterly banal reality TV and the worse excesses of the Zimbardo experiment. Our first concern was for the ethical treatment of the prisoners, and our second was for the science. But we wanted to bring this sort of research to the general public, and I hope we have done that."

Which begs the question of what the effect on the general public will be. Already, it seems as if the more subtle cruelties of The Weakest Link and Big Brother have so blunted our sensibilities that our interest can only be guaranteed by something close to torture-as-spectacle. Other programmes, such as SAS: Are You Tough Enough? (BBC 2, Sunday) and Survivor 2 (ITV, from 13 March) confirm the trend. What will follow when the thrill of The Experiment and The Trench has worn off? Would the BBC draw the line at "The Holocaust"? One fears not.