The Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrated that perceived authority can elicit strong conformity to roles in a simulated prison setting.

• A. It showed that people cannot be influenced by role assignment.
• B. It showed that personality traits alone determined behavior.
• C. It showed that perceived authority and assigned roles can lead to abusive or submissive behavior.
• D. It showed that environment has no impact on behavior.

Answer: (C)

The key idea here is that social roles and perceived authority can powerfully shape behavior. In the Stanford Prison Experiment, participants were assigned to guard and prisoner roles within a simulated prison. The guards quickly adopted controlling, even abusive, behaviors, while the prisoners became passive and distressed. This shows how the situation and the legitimacy of an authority role can override individual differences and push people to act in ways that fit those roles.

So the best answer is that perceived authority and assigned roles can lead to abusive or submissive behavior. It isn’t that people are immune to role influence, or that personality traits alone determine actions, or that environment makes no difference—the situation and its authority dynamics had a strong, measurable impact on behavior.