conformity to social roles as investigated by zimbardo Flashcards
what are social roles?
the way in which people play as members of various social groups accompanied by societies expectations of what appropriate behaviour looks like within each social role.
what was the procedure of Zimbardos prison study?
-zimbardo wanted to create a prison situation in the basement of stanford university to observe the effects on those participants acting as guards and those acting as prisoners.
-21 male student volunteers were randomly assigned to the roles.
-were encouraged to conform to their roles.
-participants de-individualised.
how is conformity shown in the zimbardo stanford prison study?
the conformity to told comes in the form of total acceptance as being a prisoner or guard and carrying out the behaviour in that role.
why did zimbardo think de-individualisation happened?
due to complete loss of their identity. this means that they seemed unable to focus on who they were and so fell into the roles. this was manipulated by the humiliation of the arrest and strip-down at the beginning. the labelling of the prisoners as numbers also helped meaning that they no longer had personal responsibility for their actions.
should this study have been done? (ethics)
the study revealed the power of the situation to influence people’s behaviour.
-participants were not protected from any form of psychological harm
-ethical guidelines 60 years agi were not as strict as they are today.
-participants felt like they were not allowed to leave (right to withdrawal)
what is blind obedience?
obedience where you can not see harm.
real-life applications?
the guards at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (2003) were similarly affected by an awful, unfortunate situation which led them to behave in ways which they would normally reject. alike the zimbardo prison study, the real-life guards at the Abu Ghraib prison were creative in their evil behaviour.
control of variables - internal validity
this means whether observed effects are due to the manipulation of the DV. Zimbardo had some control over the participants variable as he had only selected ‘emotionally stable’ participants. The researcher had ruled out individual characteristics which was due to being in the role of prisoner/guard by chance. increase in the internal validty.
lack of realism and demand characteristics
Banuazizi and Mohavedi (1975) argued that the participants were merely-play acting rather than genuinely conforming to social roles. This is because the stanford basement did not have the same realism of an actual prison. the participants performances were based on stereotypes on how prisoners and guards behave which may explain why the ‘prisoners’ wanted to rebel/riot. this suggests that findings of the stanford prison experiment tell us little on conformity of social roles in actual prisons.
role of dispostional personality influences
zimbardo has been accused of over-exaggerating the power of the situation to influence behaviour as only a third of the guards behaved in a brutal manner
