Zimbardo's study

Aim: Zimbardo wanted to investigate how people conform to their given social roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life.

Procedure: Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison. 

They advertised for students willing to volunteer and selected those who were deemed "emotionally stable" after psychological testing.

The students were randomly assigned the roles of guards or prisoners. To heighten the realism of this study the "prisoners" were arrested in their homes and were delivered to the "prison", they were blindfolded, *****-searched, deloused and issued a uniform and number.

Results:…