How Roles Turn Good People Cruel

The Stanford Prison Experiment proved we become our roles faster than we think. Zimbardo took regular

college students and randomly assigned them as guards or prisoners in a fake prison.

Within hours, guards became aggressive and cruel while prisoners became submissive and broken.

The study had to be stopped early because it got too real. One prisoner had

a complete psychological breakdown on day one. Guards admitted they enjoyed tormenting

the prisoners. Here's the wild part: prisoners started snitching on each other and

defending the guards, forgetting it was all fake. This wasn't about bad people doing

bad things. This was about good people placed in a toxic system. The research literally