PSYC 215 Lecture Notes - Trailer Park, First Story, Equity Theory
11 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
Zimbargo"s famous prison experiments: they are powerful evidence for how extraordinary demands roles make on us. Cheaply as possible turned the basement into a mock prison. Got undergrad students and gave them battery of personality tests- only made sure people who were very normal psychologically speaking students. No weirdo"s- everyone is normal, he randomly divides students into 2 groups: prisoners and guards. Students aware of what they"re getting into- the guards are given instructions and uniforms. The prisoners had it worked out with local cops- went to homes of students and picked up by quad car and brought to basement and were fingerprinted, photographer and cells. The overwhelming findings- the level to which the guards followed roles and level to which the prisoners acted out their role was so convincing that he had to stop experiment, very dangerous. Prisoners- retreated into passive aggressive, non-participatory behavior. Lives changed over night- to begin they were perfectly normal.
