Conformity To Social Roles Flashcards
What is meant by conformity to social roles
The ‘parts’ people play as members of society e.g. a mother, a teacher or a police officer
Outline Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
Aims
Used 24 male student volunteers who were tested as ‘emotionally stable’
Randomly assigned them as prisoners or guards and were encouraged to conform.
Given uniforms and numbers (prisoners) and batons and sunglasses (guards)
Prisoners ‘arrested’ from their houses and blindfolded
Guards told they had power but could not be physical
Study ended after 6 days rather than the planned 14
What were the results of Zimbardo’s study
Guards took up roles with enthusiasm
Within 2 days, prisoners rebelled, but then became very subdued.
Three prisoners had to be released early due to psychological distress.
One prisoner went on hunger strike and guards attempted to force feed him and put him in ‘the hole’
The study was stopped after 6 days, rather than the planned 14
What were the strengths of Zimbardo’s research
Screened participants as ‘emotionally stable,’ removing dispositional factors
Randomly split into guards and prisoners- no experimenter bias.
High control, so high internal validity
Can be applied to real world situations e.g Abu Ghraib prison
What were the weaknesses of Zimbardo’s research
Issues around right to withdraw
Caused psychological distress and harm
Zimbardo played a dual role, creating investigator bias
Only 1/3 of guards were actually brutal, Zimbardo didn’t highlight this (he exaggerated)
Only white men from one uni- not generalisable
Bandazizi and Mohaveti said participants were play acting as they knew it wasn’t real.
Reicher and Haslam replicated study and did not get similar results.
What did Reicher and Haslam’s study produce
Different results to Zimbardo’s study.
Prisoners took control, rather than the guards.
Guards did not develop a shared group identity.
Showed that Zimbardo’s results were not replicable.
