1.3 conformity to social roles

Define social roles

The parts people play in their social groups, these have expectations from others

What was zimbardos prison experiment

set up a mock prison to see how strongly people would conform to social roles through (guards and prisoners)

Where did zimbardos prison experiment take place

In the basement at Stanford university

How many volunteers were used for zimbardos research

21 male volunteers (students), all tested as emotionally stable

How were the students assigned to their roles in zimbardos research

Randomly assigned to either guard or prisoner, so personal biases wouldn’t occur

What was used to encourage conformity in zimbardos research

• uniforms

• Instructions

What type of uniforms were used and why

• prisoners - given a cap to cover their hair, identified by a number

• Guards - a club, handcuffs, mirrored sunglasses

• Created de-individuation (a loss of personal identities). Making them more likely to conform

What were the findings within the first 2 days

• guards took up their roles

• The prisoners rebelled

What tactics did the guards use

• divide and rule

• E.g constant harassment and head-counts to remind prisoners they were powerless

What happened after the rebellion failed

• The prisoners became subdued, depressed and anxious

• 3 had to be released due to psychological disturbance

• One went on hunger strike, was force fed then put in ‘the hole’

How long was zimbardos study

• ended after 6 days rather than the intended 14

What were the conclusions of zimbardos study

• social roles have a strong influence on individuals behaviour

• Guards became brutal and prisoners became submissive

What was the application of zimbardos research

• Jean Orlando

• Selected staff at a psychiatric ward to play the role of patients

• After two days they started experiencing symptoms of psychological disturbance

• Study was ended early because ‘patients’ were losing sense of their identity

Evaluation - control over key variables

• People were randomly assigned to their roles, so it rules out individual personality differences

• This increased the internal validity, as results were due to the role and not the person

Evaluation - lack of realism

• Banuazizi and Movahedi said participants ‘performed’ based on stereotypes

• One guard admitted he based his characteristic on ‘cold hand Luke’

• However it was found 90% of conversations were about prison life, they thought it was real but run by psychologists instead of the government

Evaluation - exaggerates the power of roles

• overstates the effects of social roles and minimised the influence of dispositional factors (e.g personality)

• E.g only 1/3 of the guards behaved in a brutal way, the rest were able to resist the pressures to conform

Evaluation - alternative explanation

• Haslam used the social identity theory to explain conformity to social roles

• Suggesting the guards had to actively identify with their roles to act as they did