conformity to social roles - Zimbardo's prison study

conformity to social roles

the parts individuals play as members of a social group, which meet the expectations of that situation.

each social situation has its own social norms, an expected way for individuals to behave.

individuals learn how to behave by looking at the social roles other people play in such situations and then conforming to them - these are then learned and stored allowing for appropriate behaviour for any given situation.

conformity to social roles thus involves identification.

aim of Zimbardo’s prison study

to investigate the extent to which people would conform to roles of guard and prisoner in a role-play simulation of prison life

procedure of Zimbardo’s prison study

21 male students were selected from 75 who had volunteered via a newspaper ad asking for pps in a study of prison life paying $15, (the 21 students were considered physically and mentally stable, mature and free from anti-social and criminal tendencies).

using random allocation, the 21 pps were divided into roles - 10 guards and 11 prisoners. Zimbardo had the role of prison superintendent and Stanford University basement was converted into a mock prison.

real police publicly arrested the ‘prisoners’, they were then finger printed, stripped and deloused. ‘prisoners’ were dehumanised by all wearing numbered smocks, nylon caps and a chain around one ankle. the ‘guards’ wore khaki uniforms, reflective sunglasses (to prevent eye contact) and were issued with handcuffs, keys and truncheons (physical punishment however wasn’t permitted).

research was planned to run for 2 weeks.

findings of Zimbardo’s prison study

guards and prisoners settled into their social roles quickly. guards became increasingly sadistic, taunting the prisoners, giving them meaningless tasks to complete.

prisoners attempted a ‘rebellion’ on day 2 but after it was crushed they became submissive and unquestioning of the guards’ behaviour (some even sided with the guards against any prisoner who protested). prisoners began to refer to themselves and each other by their prison number, showing deindividualisation.

after 36hrs, one prisoner was released cuz of fits of crying and rage. 3 more prisoners developed similar behaviours and were released soon after. the study was stopped after 6 days - Zimbardo realised the extent of the harm that was occurring.

in post-experimental interviews, both guards and prisoners said they were surprised at the uncharacteristic behaviours they’d shown.

conclusions of Zimbardo’s prison experiment

pps’ behaviours were due to situational (the prison setting) factors rather than dispositional (as no pps has demonstrated such traits before the investigation).

individuals readily conformed to the social roles that were demanded by the situation, these roles only existed as long as the pps were in the prion setting.

AO3 - strength of Zimbardo’s prison experiment: control

- selection of pps → those who were emotionally stable were chosen and randomly assigned to the role of either prisoner or guard → rules out individual personality differences as an explanation of the findings
- if the guards and prisoners behaved very differently, but were in those roles by chance, then their behaviour must’ve been due to the pressures of the situation
- increases internal validity → more confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of roles on behaviour

AO3 - limitation of Zimbardo’s prison experiment: lack of realism

Banuazizi and Mohavedi (1975) → prisoners were simply play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role. their performances were based on their stereotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave. one of the guards claimed he had based his role on the brutal character from the film ‘Cool Hand Luke’. this would explain why some of the prisoners rioted, as this is what they thought real prisoners did.

COUNTER:
Zimbardo argues that the situation was very real to the pps. quantitative data gathered during the procedure showed that 90% of the prisoners’ convos were about prison life. ‘prisoner 416’ expressed the view that the prison was a real one, but run by psychologists rather than the govt. appears the situation was real to pps → internal validity.

AO3 - limitation of Zimbardo’s prison experiment: lack of research support

Reicher and Haslam (2006) - the BBC prison study:
recreated a similar situation to Zimbardo’s prison experiment, but they were particularly interested to see how the group dynamics changed over time. controlled observation in a mock prison, which was filmed of tv. the guards failed to form a united group and identify with their role → they didn’t always exercise their power and reported feeling uncomfortable with the inequality of the situation. in the first 3 days, the prisoners tried to act in a way that would get them promoted to guard status → after one was promoted, they became a much stronger group cuz they knew there were no more chances of promotion. the unequal system collapsed due to the unwillingness of the guards and the strength of the prisoner group. pps didn’t fit into their expected social roles, suggesting that these roles are flexible.

COUNTER: made for tv → many people (including Zimbardo) argued that elements of it were staged and the pps played up to the cameras. cuz of this artificial situation, the results can’t be generalised to real life, lacks validity.