The environmental influence on social behavior

Building on this, Zimbardo (2007) acknowledged the SPE's ethical shortcomings but maintained that its lessons justified the means. The experiment demonstrated that powerful situational forces—termed the "System" (Zimbardo, 2007, p. x)—can overwhelm individual resistance to authority and shape behavior through group dynamics. Nevertheless, critics argue that Zimbardo's emphasis on situational determinism--the belief that behavior is driven by circumstance not choice--underestimates personal responsibility (Haslam et al., 2019). As a result, SPE provided a framework for analyzing how social structures influence individual choices, though its conclusions remain contentious.