Stanford Prison Experiment

1. If you were a guard, what type of guard would you have become? How sure are you?

2. If you were a prisoner, would you have been able to endure the experience? What would you have done differently than those subjects did? If you were imprisoned in a "real" prison for five years or more, could you take it?

3. What are Zimbardo's conclusions about human behavior, based on this experiment?

4. If you were the experimenter in charge, would you have done this study? Would you have terminated it earlier? Would you have conducted a follow-up study?

5. Knowing what this research says about the power of prison situations to have a corrosive effect on human nature, what recommendations would you make about changing the correctional system in your country?