Conformity To Social Oles r

Question 1

What are social roles?

Answer 1

They are Behaviours expected of an individual who occupies a social position or status. People can conform to the social roles assigned to them

Question 2

What did zimbardo want to find out?

Answer 2

He wanted to see if conformity to social roles would alter a persons behaviour.

Question 3

What was the procedure for zimbardo ?

Answer 3

Zimbardo got 24 of the most fit and healthy participants who volunteered to take part in the experiment whereby he converted the basement of Stamford university into a mock prison. Non of the participants knew each other and they were paid 15 dollars a day. The participants were then randomly assigned to be either prisoner or guard with two reserves. There were 10 prisoners and 11 guards with 2 reserves and one dropping out.

The prisoners were arrested by the real police in their homes and fingerprinted. They were stripped, deloused, and given a numbered uniform to wear. The guards were given uniforms, dark reflective sunglasses, handcuffs and truncheon. They were instructed to run the prison without physical violence and was set for 2 weeks

Question 4

What were the findings of zimbardo

Answer 4

Participants conformed quickly to their social roles. On the second day, the prisoners rebelled and ripped off of their numbers and barricaded themselves in their cells. However the guards quickly put this down, and sprayed them with carbon dioxide, stripped them naked, took their beds away and put the ring leaders into confinement.

Over the next few days, guards became a lot more aggressive and cruel. Prisoners became passive, submissive and depressed as guards made them do repeated push-ups, pushed them in urinals and left them in a pitch black cupboard for hours. It became too out of hand that the experiment had to stop after 6 days as participants were extremely distressed and the experiment was extremely inhumane

Question 5

Evaluation zimbardo

Answer 5

• The study was highly unethical as prisoners were subjected to psychological harm. Five prisoners had to be released early due to extreme reactions, such as Crying, rage, and acute anxiety. However zimabrdo didn’t expect guards ti behave in the way they did so this harm could not have been anticipated
• Zimbardo took on the role of prison warden and became very involved in the experiment and lost his objectivity. He had to be told by a colleague to end the experiment because of the concerns over the distress of the prisoners, so validity can be questioned
• sample unrepresentative as all participants were white, young, middle class and male from Stanford. Therefore results can’t be generalised to women or other cultures.
• guards may have behaved the way they did due to demand characteristics; some participants reported afterwards that they thought the experimenters wanted them to be more aggressive and this is why they behaved the way they did. This means study is not valid
• Some of the guards did not conform to the role given to them and were very reluctant to become involved in the cruelty towards the prisoners, whereas other guards were very abusive. This seems to suggest that individual differences are in determining if people will conform to social roles