PSYC 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Fundamental Attribution Error, Social Cognition
Document Summary
Is a persons behavior determined largely by personality traits or the social environment. College students were recruited through an ad. Participants were excluded if they had a criminal history or physical or psychological probs. Participants were randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards. Emphasis was placed on making the experience as realistic as possible. To promote depersonalization, prisoners were strip searched, deloused , given prison garb and assigned a number. Guards were told to make prisoners feel powerless, but not to harm them. At rst, the prisoners did not take either role seriously, and when the guards tried to enforce rules, they rebelled. Guards responded by setting up a privilege room for good behavior and using humiliation to punish infractions. One prisoner began to act crazy after 36hrs . guards became increasingly cruel, and the study was ended after 6 days. Zimbardo concluded that social roles and norms are of primary importance in creating harmful behavior.
