The Stanford prison experiment demonstrated the power of
social roles, norms, and scripts in affecting human behavior
. The guards and prisoners enacted their social roles by engaging in behaviors appropriate to the roles: The guards gave orders and the prisoners followed orders.
How did the Stanford Prison Experiment impact society?
Significance. The Stanford Prison Experiment has become one of psychology's most dramatic illustrations of how good people can be transformed into perpetrators of evil, and healthy people can begin to experience
pathological reactions
– traceable to situational forces.
What did the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrate?
According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison Experiment revealed
how people will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play
, especially if the roles are as strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards.
The Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrates
the powerful role that the situation can play in human behaviour
. Because the guards were placed in a position of power, they began to behave in ways they would not normally act in their everyday lives or in other situations.
Who was Prisoner 8612?
One of the prisoners (#8612),
Douglas Korpi
, a 22-year-old Berkeley graduate, began to exhibit uncontrollable crying and rage 36 hours into the experiment, described by Zimbardo as “acute emotional disturbance”.
What type of experiment was Zimbardo sociology?
Zimbardo (1973) conducted an extremely controversial study on conformity to social roles, called
the Stanford Prison Experiment
. His aim was to examine whether people would conform to the social roles of a prison guard or prisoner, when placed in a mock prison environment.
