Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment

what is conformity to social roles?

when an individual adopts a particular behaviour and belief while in a particular social situation

what was the background of Zimbardo’s study?

following reports of police brutality by guards in prisons in America in late 1950s, wanted to answer the question: do prison guards behave brutally because they have sadistic personalities, or is it the situation that creates such behaviour?

what was the aim of Zimbardo’s study?

to examine whether the behaviour displayed in prisons was due to internal dispositional factors, the people, or external situational factors

how did Zimbardo gain his sample and what did it consist of?

• advertised for students willing to volunteer and selected those who were emotionally stable after extensive psychological testing

• were paid $15 a day

• consisted of 21 male university students

what was the procedure of the study?

• set to run for 2 weeks (but only ended up running for 6 days)

• mock prison set up in the basement of psychology department at Stanford University

• 3 guards working a shift at a time

• guards were given batons, but told not to use physical violence, and reflective sunglasses to increase look of authority

• 16 rules for prisoners to follow

what were the results of the study?

• 1 prisoner was released on the 1st day as had symptoms of psychological disturbance

• guards abused power and punished prisoners over smallest behaviours

• within 2 days prisoners rebelled against harsh treatment

• 2 more prisoners had to be released on 4th day

• 1 prisoner went on hunger strike and guards tried to force feed him, then locked him in a tiny dark closed called ‘the hole’

what is the conclusion of the study?

it revealed the power of the situation to influence people’s behaviour

• all roles were conformed to very easily - taken on by participants as if it was a real prison

what are the strength and weaknesses of Zimbardo’s study?

strength:

• high internal validity

weaknesses:

• low ecological validity

• ethical issues

• influence of situation is over exaggerated

high internal validity

• Zimbardo had a sense of control over some variables

• for example, selection of participants - only picked emotionally stable ones

• this ruled out some individual differences or extraneous variables that could affect results

• therefore can be more confident in drawing conclusions about influence of roles on behaviour

low ecological validity

• sample only consisted of males who were all in university in America

• gender, age, and culture bias are all present

• may not apply to those who have different gender, age, or culture to sample

• must question how far we can generalise results to wider population

ethical issues

• right to withdraw - prisoners were rarely allowed to talk to Zimbardo to leave

  • on the occasion they were, instead of showing worry as a researcher, he took on the role of a superintendent worried about running the prison

• confidentiality - lots of footage of original study which shows original participants and their names

• psychological harm - were arrested outside of their home with no warning, strip searched, only being referred by number - all dehumanised and might have scared them

influence of situation is over exaggerated

• researchers argue participants were merely acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role

• behaviour was based on stereotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave

• one guard claimed he based role on a brutal character from a film