zimbardo

• Stanford prison experiment: 21 male volunteers from Stanford university were split into two groups. One group was told they were going to be prison guards and the other group were told they were prisoners.
• The participants were tested to see if they were emotionally stable, and then randomly assigned the role of a guard or prison in correspondence to who they would play in the experiment
• uniforms: prisoners were given a number to be identified as and given a cap. guards were given a uniform to identify them = more likely to conform to their roles
• social roles: the prisoners were treated harshly and within 2 days decided to rebel. The guards therefore retaliated by playing their role far more aggressively.
• experiment: the experiment had to end within six days rather than the intended 14 due to psychological damage to the prisoners
• strength: internal validity, as it was a naturalistic study, so it was not manipulated by the researcher aswell as being a longitudinal study, so it was able to show the long term effects of the intervention
• limitation: lack of realism as it was in a university not a proper environment. this meant that participants would play under demand characterstics