CLC’s team, led by Ms Effy Mertzani, BSc Psychology Kingston, MSc Clinical Neuroscience UCL, mentored and supervised our students Alkmene Boutari, Demilia Kambourides Vernicos, Mariel Mathioudaki, Marisia Douva, and Konstantina-Styliani Vrentzou, to carry out a research project on the powerful role of situational factors on human behaviour via the analysis of the Stanford Prison Experiment.
In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues set out to design an experiment to examine the effects of being a prisoner or a guard on behaviour.
The study, known as the Stanford Prison Experiment, has become one of the most famous and controversial studies in the history of psychology. According to Zimbardo, the experiment was able to demonstrate the powerful role of situational factors on human behaviour.
The aim of this paper is to explore how much individuals act according to their respective personalities or if people can act entirely different to how they normally would when found in certain social situations.
