Which experiment explored the effect of individual roles and authority on behavior?

The Stanford Prison Experiment is well-known for its exploration of how individual roles and the presence of authority can significantly influence behavior. Conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971, the study involved college students who were assigned to play the roles of either guards or prisoners in a simulated prison environment. The results revealed how quickly individuals adapt to their assigned roles, demonstrating that authority figures can pressure individuals to conform to expected behaviors, even leading to dehumanization and abusive actions in the guards.

This experiment highlighted key concepts in social psychology, such as situational vs. dispositional influences on behavior, and how the context of a situation can lead to extreme actions that contradict individual morals or personality. The drastic changes in behavior observed during this experiment underscored the power of situational forces and authority on human behavior.

In contrast, the other mentioned studies focus on different aspects of psychology: the Asch Experiment investigated conformity through peer pressure; the Little Albert Experiment examined classical conditioning and emotional responses; and the Hawthorne Studies looked at productivity in social settings. Each of these studies contributes to the field of psychology in its own right, but they do not specifically focus on the influence of roles and authority in the same way that the Stanford Prison Experiment does.