PSYC 260 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Stanford Prison Experiment, Social Loafing, Deindividuation

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 260
• Professor: Lara Aknin

Document Summary

Diverse topic/consistent themes throughout this course (2 important ones) o. Power of the situation: how people think/feel/behave is driven by large extent of the social situation/context they are in o. Importance of subjective construal: how someone sees a sitution can soetimes matter more than the actual objective details of the situation. These themes are seen through the stanford prison experiment (video) Power of situation: prison guards and prisoners quickly conformed to how they were supposed to be acting, sadistic guards and depressed prisoners. But the people were randomly assigned, within hours people took on these roles which proves that situation has impact on behaviour. Importance of subjective construal: when prisoner 8612 ring leader went to talk to zimbardo, he interpreted situation wrongly. He believed they wouldn"t let him go but he actually offered him to be a snitch. They are in stanford basement, not an actual prison.