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Role Playing: Psychological Experiment And Real Life

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Analysis of Role Playing in movie, psychological experiment and real life examples.
Role playing refers to a phenomenon in which one (either consciously or unconsciously) exhibits behaviour related to a certain character in relation to the society’s expectations and norms about that character’s behaviour in a particular situation.
Over the course of history, Role Playing has been a subjected to great deal of analysis. Various movies and psychological experiments have made it their focus of attention.
Role Playing in psychological experiments
Zimbardo (1973) carried out a study to demonstrate the situational causes of hostile behaviour which refers to the powerful influence that the prevailing circumstances and situations can have on one’s behaviour. The volunteers who were recruited through a newspaper advert were promised $15 per day for their participation in the experiment which was carried out in a mock prison where they were randomly allocated the role of prisoners or guards (Cherry, 2015).
The important effect of Role Playing on one’s behaviour became evident from the very beginning of the experiment where the guards began to adopt an aggressive and harsh attitude towards the prisoners. The fact that the guards enjoyed insulting and punishing the prisoners within a short while of the beginning of the …show more content…

Many prisoners who had been released complained that they had suffered sleep deprivation, prolonged constraint in uncomfortable positions, prolonged hooding, sexual and cultural humiliation, forced injections, and other physical and psychological mistreatment during their stay at the prison. All these dehumanizing acts of the guards reflect their role playing which had blinded them towards recognizing the rights of the prisoners (Blake,

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