conformity to social roles

Question 1

What experiment did Zimbardo conduct?

Answer 1

Stanford Prison Experiment

Question 2

Who conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment?

Answer 2

Zimbardo

Question 3

What was the aim of the Stanford Prison Experiment?

Answer 3

-to investigate the influence of social roles on behaviour

Question 4

What was the sample used in the SPE?

Answer 4

-21 male student volunteers tested to be ‘emotionally stable’

Question 5

What roles were played by participants in the SPE? How were they assigned?

Answer 5

-prisoners and guards
-randomly

Question 6

What two ways were participants SPE encouraged to conform to their social roles?

Answer 6

-through their uniforms
-through instructions about their behaviour

Question 7

What did prisoners in the SPE have to wear?

Answer 7

-loose smocks
-a heavy ankle chain
-stocking caps to imitate shaven heads
-only referred to by their ID number

Question 8

What did guards in the SPE have to wear?

Answer 8

-identical guard uniforms
-clubs borrowed from local police
-mirror sunglasses so that their eyes couldn’t be seen

Question 9

What effect did the uniforms worn by participants in the SPE have?

Answer 9

-De-individualised them / created a loss of personal identity making them more likely to conform

Question 10

What happened to ‘prisoners’ at the very start of the SPE?

Answer 10

-arrested in their own homes and arrived to the ‘prison’ blindfolded
-stripped and deloused

Question 11

How did guards act towards prisoners In the SPE?

Answer 11

-treated the prisoners harshly.
-retaliated to the rebellion with fire extinguishers
-Guards harassed the prisoners constantly, to remind them of the powerlessness of their role.
-forced prisoners to do physical punishments such as push ups/ sit ups and made them more extreme in the night
-forced prisoners to randomly strip
-controlled every aspect of prisoners lives including when they went to the toilet

Question 12

How did prisoners act in the SPE?

Answer 12

-Prisoners rebelled within 2 days- they ripped their uniforms, shouted and swore at the guards, barricaded themselves in cells and refused to obey
-less than 36 hours into the experiment a prisoner suffered from acute emotional disturbance- no one believed him and let him leave until he acted hysterically
-multiple priasoners became emotional wrecks- breakdowns, hunger strikes
-no sense of identity- became fully immersed, prisoners didn’t talk about life outside of the prison and seemed to believe they really couldn’t leave until their ‘sentence’ was over

Question 13

What suggests that participants had conformed to their social roles fully (not just for show) in the SPE?

Answer 13

• would continue to act this way even in the night when they thought no one was watching (didnt know about hidden cameras)

Question 14

How long did the SPE last?

Answer 14

-Zimbardo ended the study after six days instead of the intended 14

Question 15

What was concluded from the SPE?

Answer 15

-Social roles appear to have a strong influence on individuals’ behaviour- the guards were brutal and prisoners submissive
-Roles were easily taken on by participants and even volunteers that came in to do specific roles acted as if they were working in an actual prison rather than psychological study, and parents that contacted lawyers

Question 16

What are the limitations of the SPE?

Answer 16

-Zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles
-SPE didnt have the realism of a real prison
-SUPER unethical

Question 17

What are the strengths of the SPE?

Answer 17

-high level of control over key variables
-counterpoint for the idea that SPE wasnt realistic enough

Question 18

Explain the limitation of the SPE that Zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles?

Answer 18

-Only 1/3 of guards actually behaved brutally
-Another 1/3 tried to enforce rules fairly and the other 1/3 were sympathetic to prisoners and reinstated privileges and gave them cigs
-This means that most guards were able to resist situational pressures to conform to a brutal role
-This suggests that Zimbardo overstated his view that SPE participants were conforming to social roles and minimized the influence of dispositional factors such as personality

Question 19

Explain the limitation of the SPE that it didnt have the realism of a real prison?

Answer 19

Movahedi et al suggested that the participants were play acting rather than conforming to a specific role
-Participants’ performances were based on their stereotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave.
-For example, one guard revealed that he based his role on a brutal character from the film ‘Cool Hand Luke’
-This would also explain why prisoners rebelled on the second day- they thought that was how prisoners were supposed to act
-This suggests that the findings of the SPE tell us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons.

Question 20

Explain the counterpoint for the idea that the SPE that it didnt have the realism of a real prison?

Answer 20

-McDermott suggested that the participants were acting
-90% of prisoners conversations were about the prison life
-Amongst themselves they discussed how they could not leave the SPE until their ‘sentences’ were over
-Prisoner 416 later explained how he believed the prison was a real one but run by psychologists rather than the Government.
-This suggests that the SPE did replicate the social roles of prisoners and guards in real prison giving the study a high degree of internal validity.

Question 21

Explain the strength of the SPE that Zimbardo and his colleagues had control over key variables.

Answer 21

-The most obvious example of this was the selection of participants.
-Emotionally-stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to the roles of guard and prisoner.
-This was one way in which the researchers ruled out individual personality differences as an explanation of the findings.
-If guards and prisoners behaved very differently, but were in those roles only by chance, then their behaviour must have been due to the role itself.
-This degree of control over variables increased the internal validity of the study, making conclusions about the influence of roles on conformity more accurate.

Question 22

What are the ethical issues with the SPE?

Answer 22

-psychological harm: multiple prisoners experienced acute psychological disturbance and had to leave early , they were humiliated and lost their dignity
-physical harm: harassed, forced to do physical punishments, beaten, woken up in the middle of the night
-right to withdraw: prisoners truly believed they couldn’t leave until their sentences were over, difficult to leave- had to apply for parole, those that developed psychological problems weren’t believed so couldn’t leave