Question

Philip Zimbardo devised a simulated prison and randomly assigned college students to serve as prisoners or guards. This experiment best illustrates the impact of:_______
A. team membership on social loafing.
B. groupthink on social conflict.
C. frustration on aggression.
D. role playing on attitudes.
E. shyness on conformity

Answer 1

Answer:

The answer is: role playing on attitudes.

Explanation:

Zimbardo's controviersial experiment, also known as the Stanford prison experiment, aimed to simulate a prison environment and study the behaviors of both prisoners and guards (that were actually randomly assigned students).

Zimbardo wanted to focus on role playing and its influence on attitudes and behavior, which is why he asigned students randomly to both roles (prisoners or guards). He aimed to see if students that were asigned to be guards started to behave in such a way, and he discovered that role playing does have a strong influence on attitudes. Guards started acting violent and authoritarian towards prisoners, and prisoners also started defying their authority and causing riots.