Zimbardo

Zimbardo

Brief: I am a researcher looking into the behaviour of students once they have been given roles in a prison style environment. This study will last 2 weeks and you will each be given roles that you may wish to take as seriously as you see fit. The location will be Stanford University and your name and data will be kept confidential. Will you take part?

Standardised instructions:

• Your results will be removed at your request
• Your data will be kept strictly confidential
• Once given your role you must ensure you stick to it
• You will each be allocated a time at which you can see your parents
• Please ensure that you are within the prison environment at all times (guards)
• It is important for our results that you remain in the process throughout its 2 week period
• Once the experiment is over you may hand your uniforms over to us
• You may now leave the experiment.

Debrief: I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for participating in our study. The purpose was to investigate the effects of a prison environment on people’s behaviour. Each group adopted different roles however you have given us similar results. We discovered that you behave differently when given a role of power and took it upon yourself to cause harm to others. Whilst the prisoners decided to rebel against the guards as they felt they were being treated wrongly. These results will help us to learn more about the way we react to being given roles that they are told to adapt to.