Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment / Conformity to social roles

What was the research aim of Zimbardo’s experiment?

Aim : study what happens to good people in an evil place.

Can an institution control behaviour? Or does morality and personal values allow you to rise above?

Who was recruited for the Stanford prison experiment and how were they recruited?

Participants : College students

Advertised in the local paper, $15 a day payment. Prisoners who volunteered were then arrested in their own homes.

Location : Basement converted into a prison.

What were the findings of Zimbardo’s experiment?

• Study was terminated after 6 days instead of 14.

• Prisoners rebelled, guards displayed very harsh treatment.

• Prisoners showed signs of psychological disturbance and 5 left the study early.

• Guards closely identified with their roles, becoming sadistic, brutal and aggressive.

Evaluating Zimbardo’s Prison experiment - Weaknesses.

• Ethical issues, the experiment broke many ethical guidelines in particular protection from harm. 5 prisoners left early because of psychological reactions to the torment. Participants were also deceived about the true nature of the study.

• Contradictory findings to Zimbardo, Reicher and Haslam (2006) replicated the original experiment, participants did not conform to their social roles.

• The impact of individual differences, personality can also affect the extent to which a person conforms to social roles. In Zimbardo’s experiments a few guards were kind and helped the prisoners.

• Demand characteristics, volunteers may have pre-empted the purpose of the study and acted accordingly.

• The sample, methodological issue - sample bias to all male university students.

• His dual-role, Zimbardo’s dual-role as the researcher but also the prison superintendent.

Evaluating Zimbardo’s Prison experiment - Strengths.

• Highly controlled, Zimbardo attempted to control variables. Eg. the carrying out of personality tests on the participants and only choosing the emotionally stable individuals. Therefore, he could conclude that any conformity to social roles was due to situational and not dispositional factors (personality). The study was made as realistic as possible and findings have been applied to real-life prison settings, so it has high external validity.