Quote Originally Posted by kpaske
Well, the point of the whole experiment, or at least what I read in the links that WyrreJ posted, was to show that the behavior of the participants was dictated by the situation, and not some predisposition in the individual. If you believe the argument that they were behaving based on some preconceived notion of how they were expected to behave, it sort of invalidates the experiment. Personally I think it was probably a combination of the two effects, but I think there is still some validity to what Zimbardo was trying to prove.

True to an extent. However, if they were simply stuck in a situation and told "you are guards you are inmates", nothing would happen. They would mill about, bumping into each other "oh, hello inmate #2"..."yes, yes, how is every little thing guard #5."

Without preconceived behavioral patterns, they would not have known where to begin. The only thing the situation dictated was their label or class.

This is studied along with the freudian lessons...all about the subsconscious. Point being that even if you want to do something different, humans have an overwhelming tendancy to do what their subconscious tells them to do, IE all it knows to do based on experience either 1st person or 2nd hand. Thus predisposition is the main controlling factor in this case.