Conformity to social roles- Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo) AQA PSYCHOLOGY

what is meant by social roles?

Social roles are the parts people play as members of a social group, that meet the expectations of that situation.

Everyday examples of social roles include parent, doctor, teacher, etc. These are accompanied by expectations that we and others have of what is appropriate behavior in each role.

Who demonstrates social roles?

Zimbardo (1973)

What experiment did Zimbardo do?

Stanford Prison Experiment

What did Zimbardo want to investigate?

- Zimbardo wanted to investigate if the reasons for high levels of aggression in American prisons were due to the personalities of the prisoners and guards (dispositions) or the situation (environment).

What was the sample for Zimbardo's study?

75 volunteers

21 male american undergraduates

How were volunteers recruited?

- Zimbardo made a newspaper advertisement for people to join the experiment

- promised to pay the volunteers $15 a day

- Done psychological tests in order for the volunteers to be physically and mentally well

How were the volunteers assigned their roles?

- Random selection

- 10 guards and 11 prisoners

What happened to the prisoners at the beginning of the experiment?

- Prisoners were given realistic arrests

- Guards used fingerprinting, stripped , deloused and given a uniform and were called according to their numbers not name

( seen as dehumanizing )

What happened to the guards at the beginning of the experiment?

- Made sure the prisoners followed their strict rules

- Complete control was given over to the guards

- Given an intimidating uniform consisting of: clubs and sunglasses to avoid eye contact.

What was the method of Zimbardo's study?

-Took place in a psychology basement- Stanford University

-Prisoners arrested by real police and processed

Dehumanization was used- Chain around ankle

-Meant to run for 2 weeks

What happened throughout the days of the experiment?

- Within 2 days the prisoners revolted against the guards for poor treatment.

- In 6 days, the experiment was cancelled due to fears for the prisoners well- being.

What was the procedure of the stanford prison experiment?

- The basement of Stanford university was turned into a mock prison

- American student randomly assigned to their roles (guard or prisoner)

- Prisoners only assigned by their numbers

- Guards were given props like handcuffs and sunglasses (to make eye contact with prisoners impossible) and to reinforce boundaries according tot he social hierarchy.

- Guards were allowed to control such behaviour in order to emphasise their complete power.

-No physical violence was permitted according to ethical guidelines

- The behaviour was observed

What were the findings of the guards in the Stanford prison experiment?

- Everyone involved with the experiment conformed to their social roles despite their disparity (difference in treatment)

- Guards began to harass and torment the prisoners inn harsh and aggressive way, later reporting that they enjoyed doing so because they relished (enjoyed) their power and control.

- the guards became more demanding of obedience towards the prisoners.

- Respective social roles became increasingly internalised (strongest type of conformity)

What were the findings of the prisoners of the Stanford prison experiment

- Prisoners would only talk about prison issues (forgetting about their own previous life) they would also snitch on other prisoners to please the guards

- Within days the prisoners rebelled, but this was quickly crushed by the guards, who then grew increasingly abusive towards the prisoners.

- Prisoners believed that the prison was real and were not acting simply due to demand characteristics.

-The prisoners became more submissive

- Five of the prisoners were released from the experiment early, because of their adverse reactions to the physical and mental torment, for example, crying and extreme anxiety.

What happened to the social roles of the prisoners and guards?

Everyone involved with the experiment conformed to social roles

- showing the situational power of the prison experiment (the environment)

Evaluation

What are the strengths of the experiment?

- High internal validity (the more accurate it is)

- The way random selection was used was an advantage because they ruled out individual personality differences

-

What experiment proved Zimbardo's study wrong?

Reicher and Haslam (2006)

Reicher and Haslam replication (2006)

- Attempted a re creation of the SPE for BBC

- randomly assigned 15 men to social roles

- In this replication, the participants did not conform to their social roles automatically.

- Prisoners became dominant over the guards and were disobedient

- Guards were unable to control this behaviour because the guards didnt identify with their social role

- These results clearly contradict the findings of Zimbardo and suggest that conformity to social roles may not automatic, as Zimbardo originally implied.

Weaknesses of the SPE (3)

1. Lack of realism

- Prisoners and guards may have been acting, according to the stereotypes (study suffered from demand characteristics)

- may have changed their behaviour to please the experimenter

- They imitated stereotypes of how prisoners and guards act in the media for example movies like "cool hand luke"

- The film shows controlling and aggressive guards.

- EVIDENCE: From qualitative data, one guard was reported to portraying his actions based on the stereotypical role of the guard role portrayed in "cool hand luke"

2. Lacks population validity

- The study was only done to American male students so this cannot be generalised (cannot be targeted at the wider population) towards other cultures and genders.

- Collectivist cultures such as China and Japan may be more conformist because they value the needs of groups more than individuals

- Such findings may be culture bound

3. Ethical issues

- Lack of fully informed consent due to the deception required to avoid demand characteristics and participant reactivity.

-However, Zimbardo himself didnt know what was going to happen so there could be a justification towards the breach (violation) of ethical guidelines.

Additionally

- Participants were not protected from psychological harm that was inflicted on them, they were not protected fro: anxiety,emotional damage and stress ( one prisoner had to be released due to excess distress and uncontrollable screaming and crying)

- This study would be deemed unacceptable according to modern ethical standards.