Human Behavior In Lord Of The Flies, By William Golding

How the Environment Changes Behavior

Human’s that are not used to an environment will be changed emotionally on how it affects them. A psychologist by the name of Philip Zimbardo will help us better understand on how a new environment can change human behavior. Along with some other helpful resources.
In the book, “ The Lord of the Flies”, by William Golding, he writes about characters who have crashed on an island and have no way to get off. The setting is a group of boys on an island full of jungles, mountains, and beaches. The main characters are Ralph and Piggy, together they found a conch and brought everyone together. Conflicts happen when Jack wants to be chief of the tribe. Jack thinks he should be chief, because he doesn’t like how Ralph does anything. Another conflict occurs when Jack’s tribe starts stealing from Ralph’s tribe.
He believed that the experiment showed how the individual personalities of the male subjects could be swamped when they were given the position of authority. Zimbardo split the subjects up into two groups one as guards and the other as prisoners. As said in the article, Zimbardo had to remove a few prisoner subjects from the experiment because of mental instability. The subjects that were prisoners had no rights what-so-ever. While the other subjects that were guards tried to change the rules of the prison, but did not succeed. On the third day of the experiment the guard subjects began to show an extreme and imbedded streak of sadism. Both the guard and prisoner subjects were humiliated. The experiment showed that stricter rules would help the guards and prisoners to not feel as