Zimbardo

- following reports of the brutility of security guards, he wanted to answer the question 'do security guards behave brutility because of sadisitc personalities or is it the siutation which creates the behaviour

- set up a mock prison in stanford university basement

-advertised for volunteers and selected those deemed as emotionally stable

- they were then randomly placed into either a prisoner or guard

- to heighten the realism of the sceanario, prisoners were arrested at home.

they were blind folded, ***** searched and deloused (treat them like an insect) they were issued a unform with a personal number which they would be refurred to as

the social roles to the prisoners and guards were divided. The prisoners had a strict regime , with 16 roles they had to comply too

the guards had their own uniform, complete with a wooden club, hand cuffs and mirrored shades. They had complete power and even decided when the prisoners went to the toilet.

- after a slow start guards took to their roles and became a threat to prisoners psychological health, so it had to be stopped after 6 days instead of 14

- within two days the prisoners rebelled, by ripping uniform off and shouting and swearing

the guards did a divide- and- rule tactic by playing prisoners on eachother. They harassed them constantly, and punished them over the tiniest of things.

- the prisoners were subdued and depressed. One prisoner was sent home after one day due to having symptoms of psychological disturbance. Two more were released on the fourth day. One went on hunger strike, which the guards punished him by placing him in a dark hole which once he came back from the other prisoners rejected him.

the guards seemed to enjoy torturing

they all conformed.

+ some control over variables, by placing them randomly they get more internal valiidity

MOHAVEDI- found there was a lack of realism as some guards explained how they were basing their behaviour on sterotypes, one person said thye based behaviour on cool hand luke. 

HOWEVER...... zimabardo gathered qualatative data during the procedure and found that 90 percent of prison talk was about prison. prisoner 416 expressed how they felt it was a real prison. This give high internal validity

FROMM- found that 1/3 of guards behaved in a brutual mnner. Some even helped by giving sympathy and ****. So he may be over stating