Conformity to social roles

Question 1

What is a social role

Answer 1

Role people play as a member of a social group

Question 2

What is deindividuation

Answer 2

Losing your sense of identity/personal responsibility

Question 3

Aim of Zimbardo’s study

Answer 3

To see if people would conform to the social roles of a prison guard or prisoner

Question 4

Zimbardo’s procedure

Answer 4

Mock prison in Stanford University, California
24 Male American students psychologically and physically screened
Randomly assigned to either prisoner or guard
Prisoners were arrested at their homes by real police/went through a demoralising process e.g. fingerprints taken
Prisoners were stripped and given uniform/ID(only referred to as their ID number)
Prisoners had to wear a locked chain symbolising their lack of freedom
Guards wore uniform and dark sunglasses
Study was supposed to last 2 weeks

Question 5

Results of Zimbardo’s study

Answer 5

Guards quickly identified with the role and grew increasingly abusive during the first few days
Prisoners quickly started to rebel
Guards gave special privilege to conforming prisoners
Prisoners were forced to do degrading tasks e.g cleaning toilets at night
Prisoners soon became more submissive/identified with the role
One prisoner asked for parole rather than to withdraw
5 Participants were released early due to extreme reactions e.g crying, anxiety/rage

Study was stopped at 6 days
This is due to Zimbardo’s wife
She reminded Zimbardo that the abuse to prisoners was not justified in the name of science

Question 6

Zimbardo’s conclusion

Answer 6

People conformed to their roles due to identification
Most prisoners conformed due to situational variables e.g abuse
Some prisoners had tolerance to this and took longer to conform/didn’t conform
Experiment ended early due to Zimbardo’s wife pointing out how unethical it was

Question 7

A03’s for Zimbardo’s research

Answer 7

Lab experiment - Controls extraneous variables/high internal validity - Counter - artificial so low ecological validity
Doesn’t take into account dispositional factors - Fromm - 1/3 of guards were abusive, 2/3 gave out privileges e.g. cigarettes and were nice
Lack of realism - Banuazizi suggested play acting ( counter - 90% of prison conversations was about prison life)

Question 8

Issues and debates for Zimbardo’s research

Answer 8

Beta Bias - Minimises the difference between males and females
Both genders would perform differently