Conformity: identification to social roles Flashcards
What was the aim of Zimbardo’s experiment?
To investigate the extent to which people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role playing simulation of prison life.
What was the procedure of Zimbardo’s experiment?
- Acquired volunteers from them responding to an advert that had been posted- those deemed ‘emotionally stable’ were selected and randomly assigned the role of prisoner of guard (24 people in total participated)
- ‘Prisoners’ were arrested at home and taken to Stanford prison where they were given smocks to wear and assigned a number which they were referred to for the rest of the study
- Zimbardo felt that deindividuation happened due to a loss of individuation and because prisoners were labelled as numbers
What were the results of the Zimbardo experiment?
- Only 10% of the time prisoners’ conversations were about life outside the prison and the guards rarely exchanged personal information on their breaks and would only talk about prisoners, prison topics, or not talk at all
- All volunteers adapted to roles well beyond expected
- Guards came up with new ways to humiliate the prisoners without physical aggression
- Prisoners tried to rebel, but guards overpowered them
- Some prisoners became depressed and anxious- 1 had to be released after day 1 and by day 6, prisoners were submissive to the guards
If the point is:
A weakness of Zimbardo’s study is that its generalisability could be considered low.
What is the evidence, explanation and link?
Evidence- The high levels of conformity to social roles found may be because of the time (1973) the experiment was done, meaning the study lacks temporal validity.
Explanation- The participants in the study were all men. Therefore, it’s hard to generalise the findings to potential female participants, as the sample is unrepresentative of the target population. This makes the study androcentric.
Link- This implies that we cannot generalise these results to all populations or genders as it’s unrepresentative.
If the point is:
A strength of the Zimbardo study is that it has high reliability because it involved clear standardised procedures.
What is the evidence and link?
Evidence- For example, all participants were arrested at their homes before entering the prison and all prisoners wore smocks and were given a number instead of a name.
Link- This suggests that the study can be checked for consistency of findings, resulting in higher reliability.
If the point is:
A strength of Zimbardo’s study is that it has practical applications. The findings from the study can be used to explain the importance of the situation causing behaviour.
What is the evidence, explanation and link?
Evidence- For example, deindividuation of the prisoners by using a number to address them rather than their names, may have contributed to their lack of control over their role.
Explanation- Some psychologists suggest that prison life is made harder due to the people in the prison, however Zimbardo’s study has shown that the situation has the potential for people to act in aggressive ways in a prison like experiment.
Link- This shows that the Zimbardo study is very useful in adding to the understanding of behaviour in a prison environment, and the findings from conformity to social roles can be applied to prisoners and guards in real life prisons.
If the point is:
A strength of the Zimbardo study of social roles is that it could be said that it did have some realism.
What is the evidence, explanation and link?
Evidence- This is because Zimbardo went to great extremes in making the study as true to life as possible, for example in the way that he had the prisoners abducted from their homes.
Explanation- There’s also considerable evidence that the participants did react to the situation as if it was real. For example, 90% of prisoners’ private conversations were on prison conditions.
Link- This suggests that the experiment did replicate the social roles of prisoners and guards in a real life prison, giving the study a high degree of internal validity.
What are the evaluation points for Zimbardo’s study?
— Its generalisability could be considered low
+ It has high reliability because it involved clear standardised procedures
+ The study has practical applications. The findings from the study can be used to explain the importance of the situation causing behaviour
+ It could be said that the study does have some realism
