Conformity To Social Roles

Question 1

Who studied social roles and conformity

Answer 1

Zimbardo

Question 2

What did Zimbardo want to investigate

Answer 2

how we conform to social roles rather than behaviors and opinions of others

Question 3

what was the question Zimbardo wanted to answer following the reports of prison guard brutality

Answer 3

Do prison guards behave brutally because they have sadist personalities or is it the situation that creates this behaviour?

Question 4

what was the name of the experiment Zimbardo conducted to research conformity to social change

Answer 4

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Question 5

Briefly outline the Stanford Prison Experiment

Answer 5

.conducted in basement in stanford uni’s psych basement
.recruited 21 emotioanlly stable students
.randomly assigned roles of either guards or prisoners
.prisoners were arrested in their homes and blindfolded to be taken to the prison and then stripsearched and issued a uniform and number
.their daily routine was heavily regulated
.guards had complete power over prisoners

Question 6

why were prisoners arrested in their homes and delivered to the prison

Answer 6

to increase realism

Question 7

what were the prisoners known by

Answer 7

numbers not names (loss of identity)

Question 8

how many rules where there to follow

Answer 8

16

Question 9

how did the guard shifts work

Answer 9

they worked in shifts 3 at a time

Question 10

what did the guard uniform consist of

Answer 10

wooden club, handcuffs, keys and mirror shades

Question 11

what were the findings for the prisoners

Answer 11

within 2 days they rebelled against their treatment and ripped their uniforms and shouted and swore at the guards who retaliated with fire extinguishers

Question 12

what were the findings for the guards

Answer 12

they harassed the prisoners constantly by conducting frequent headcounts sometimes in the middle of the night and they highlighted differences in social roles by creating opportunities to enforce the rules and punish slight misdemeanors

Question 13

how did the guards behaviour change throughout the experiment

Answer 13

after a slow start, the guards took their roles with enthusiasm and their behavior became a threat to the prisoner’s psychological and physical health

Question 14

what was the health of the prisoners like

Answer 14

They became subdued, anxious, and depressed
.3 Prisoners were released early due to psychological harm
.1 prisoner went on a hunger strike but was force-fed by guards and was punished by being put in ‘the hole’

Question 15

after how many days was the study stopped compared to how many days it was supposed to be

Answer 15

stopped after 6 days instead of the planned 8 days

Question 16

what did the stimulation reveal about the power of the situation to influence peoples behavior

Answer 16

all roles conformed to their social roles within the prison and as for the guards, the more they identified with their roles the more brutal and aggressive they became

Question 17

STRENGTH: In what ways did Zimbardo have control over his research

Answer 17

.choice of participants- emotionally stable
.randomly allocated to conditions to avoid the influence of personality

Question 18

STRENGTH: what is the benefit of there being good control over variables in a study

Answer 18

There is good internal validity- cause and effect of the roles

Question 19

LIMITATION: what were the ethical issues presented in this study

Answer 19

.They were deceived as even though they signed an agreement they didn’t know they would be arrested at home
.Psychological harm as they were humiliated and dehumanized by the initiation procedure
.The ends do not justify the means and this study became too real for those who took part

Question 20

STRENGTH (counterpoint): How did Zimbardo tackle some of the ethical issues

Answer 20

.They had several sessions with participants to help them deal with their emotional responses to the experiment
.They maintained contact with the participants to prevent any negative effects from happening

Question 21

LIMITATION: why was it an ethical issue that Zimbardo was both the lead researcher and superintendent

Answer 21

Because both his roles conflicted with each other as they both had different motives, this limited his ability to protect participants from harm. This stemmed from when a student who wanted to leave the study spoke to him and he responded as a superintendent who worried about how the prison ran rather than as a researcher

Question 22

LIMITATION: what did other psychologists argue about the study’s realism

Answer 22

that the play-acting was based on stereotypes which affects the validity of the results

Question 23

STRENGTH (counterpoint): how did Zimbardo counteract their claim

Answer 23

He found that through quantitative data that the prisoners thought it was a real prison