1.3 - Conformity to Social Roles with Zimbardo and BBC Study

Question 1

What was the procedure for Zimbardo’s study?

Answer 1

• Stanford University
• Male student volunteers through university advert
• 70 applied and 24 chosen and randomly selected as guards or prisoners
• Arrested at home and given uniform, ID number
• Guards given freedom and had bat, glasses and whistle
• Planned to last 2 weeks but stopped after 6 days
• Initially not allowed to leave experiment early

Question 2

When was Zimbardo’s study?

Answer 2

1973

Question 3

Findings of Zimbardo’s study

Answer 3

• Guards began to become abusive showing conformity to social roles based on environment
• 5 prisoners released early due to psychological damage
• How to better improve society

Question 4

Ethical issues in Zimbardo’s study

Answer 4

• Deception
• Debriefing
• Right to withdraw
• Protection from harm

Question 5

When was the BBC study by Reicher and Haslam?

Answer 5

2006

Question 6

Procedure of the BBC study

Answer 6

• 15 male participants divided into 5 groups of 3 on key personality variables and 1 of each 3 was a guard
• 8 days
• Recruited via newspaper advert
• Knew it was being televised

Question 7

Ethics for the BBC study

Answer 7

• Passed BPS committee
• Had consent
• Paramedic on duty and security
• Monitored and could be stopped by committee at any time

Question 8

Outcomes of the BBC study

Answer 8

• That participants didn’t immediately conform and its more complex than social roles
• When not given rules more likely to act in a severe way
• Shows how a situation can turn worse when the power shift happens and power is lost

Question 9

PEEL - Conformity not automatic

Answer 9

P - Not all guards behaved sadistically so such behaviour may not be due to embracing to social roles automatically
E - Decreases reliability of his study as for example..
E - Haslam and Reicher pointed out in their study the behaviour varied from ‘fully sadistic’ to their being a few ‘good guards’
L - Argues they had a choice whether to conform as some didn’t and wrong to assume the behaviour was an automatic consequence of conforming to a social role

Question 10

PEEL - Demand characteristic

Answer 10

P - Demand characteristics may have affected SPE
E - This weakens the internal validity
E - Banuazizi and Movahedi (1975) argued that the behaviour of participants in SPE was due to DC as they knew they had to conform and had to act as the roles they were given
L - This suggests that the internal validity of the SPE might have been seriously threatened by the presence of demand characteristics and not due to the ‘compelling prison environment’

Question 11

What did Banuazizi and Movahedi suggest?

Answer 11

They argued that the behaviour of participants in SPE was due to DC as they knew they had to conform and had to act as the roles they were given

Question 12

PEEL - Real world application

Answer 12

P - Conformity to social roles has real world applications
E - Zimbardo argues it has similar results as the Abu Ghraib which was a prison in Iraq
E - This had the same results where guards were violent to prisoners due to situational factors that made abuse more likely due to lack of training/boredom
L - This suggests that certain situational factors, combined with an opportunity to misuse the power associated with certain roles, can lead to people behaving in tyrannical and abusive ways supporting what Zimbardo found

Question 13

What happened in the Abu Gharaib prison and it’s relation?

Answer 13

Abu Ghraib which was a prison in Iraq and this had the same results where guards were violent to prisoners due to situational factors that made abuse more likely due to lack of training/boredom

Question 14

PEEL - Ethics

Answer 14

P -