Zimbardo Stanford prison experiment

What’s the aim

To see wither people will conform to new social roles

What was the method

-24 male university students volunteered

-randomly allocated to 2 groups, prisoners and prison guards

-prisoners were locked in ‘cells’ for 2 weeks and the guards had to keep them under control

-prisoners arrested at home unexpectedly, they were stripped and given uniform and a number that they were referred to

-guards given uniforms, sticks and glasses. They worked shivers and went home at the end of each shift

What were the results

-called off after 6 days as guards become so brutal that 2 prisoners had nervous breakdowns

-prisoners did not stand up the guards just did what they were told

What was the conclusion

-they conformed to social roles

-loose sense of identity and personal responsibility, follow social norms

How did it have ethical issues (weakness)

Failure to protect from harm, prisoners became very stressed and emotionally unstable

Counter argument for not protecting from harm (strength)

Gave lengthy debriefs and stopped the experiment early

How might demand characteristics affect the results (weakness)

-gave outline of the study so they may have guessed the aim

-lowers the validity as their behaviour may not have been been their true actions, could be acting

How was there good control over extraneous variables (strength)

-randomly allocated the pp’s to the rules reducing the chances of individuals differences confounding the results

-results into conformity into social roles are internally valid

How’s their a lack of consistency in results in other research

-Haslam conducted a similar experiment and found that the prisoners took over the guards

-Zimbardos may lack temporal validity and are not still applicable in modern society, people might be less conforming to the roles

-however in the modern version they were aware of being filmed for TV so this may explain why their less willing to conform to their role