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Every guard at sometime or another behaved in an abusive, authoritarian way; many seemed positively to enjoy the new-found power and the almost total control over the prisoners which went with the uniform.

We cannot attribute the behaviour to any pre-existing personality traits, such as pyscho-pathic or sadistic.

Factors conspiring to produce the high obedience rates include social norms(e.g. the implied contract to continue the experiment until completed); the surveillance of the experimenter; buffers that distance the person from the consequences of his or her acts (obedience drops from 65% to 45% if the subject is in the same room); and the legitimating role of science, which leads people to abandon their autonomy to the experimenter (repeat of experiment in run-down surroundings in off University setting - obedience dropped from 65% to 45%).

We learn social roles ( e.g. prisoner / guard) in stereotype form which we use when faced with new situations - when called upon to be in charge or to be submissive e.g. environmental conditions facilitate role playing - e.g. brutalising atmosphere like the 'mock' prison' produces brutality.

Obedience to authority can be undermined - and rebellion provoked - if the individual is with a group whose members have the opportunity to share their opinions, can give each other social support for dissenting, and can provide role models for disobedience.  But the individual may then have to choose between obedience to the authority and conformity to the group that has decided to rebel.

Studies of conformity and obedience reveal that situational factors exert more influence over behaviour than most of us realise. We tend to underestimate situational forces on behaviour.

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