Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo Flashcards
Social roles
The behaviours expected by an individual who occupies a given social position or status.
Who did research into social roles?
Zimbardo 1973
What did Zimbardo aim to test?
Whether ordinary people would conform to the social roles of prison guard and prisoner in a mock prison as part of the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE).
How did Zimbardo gather his sample?
He advertised for male students to take part (volunteer sample)
How many people took part in the sample?
24 most emotionally stable.
How were the participants allocated to the roles?
Random allocation
How were the prisoners brought to the experiment?
They were arrested at their home by the local police and they were blindfolded, strip searched, deloused, given a uniform and a number.
What were the guards given?
Uniforms, wooden clubs, handcuffs, keys and wore reflective sunglasses (to prevent eye contact).
What were the guards told they had?
Complete power over the prisoners.
What did the guards refer to the prisoners with?
Their number
What role did Zimbardo take on?
Prison superintendent
How long was the study planned to last for?
2 weeks
How did the guards behave towards the prisoners?
They became increasingly abusive. They would wake them in the middle of the night and forced them to clean the toilets with their bare hands.
What happened in the prisoners within 2 days?
They rebelled against their harsh treatment by ripping their uniforms and shouting and swearing at the guards but the guards responded with fire extinguishers.
What did the prisoners become after the rebellion was out down?
Subdued, depressed and anxious.
How many prisoners were allowed to leave the study early?
5
After how many days was the study terminated?
6 days
What did the study show?
That both the guards and the prisoners conformed to the social roles
What did all the participants appear to lose?
Their sense of personal identity. This was shown through the prisoners referring to each other by their numbers rather then their names (de-individuation). The guards became increasingly aggressive and the prisoners became increasingly passive and accepting of their fate (Dehumanisation)
What did Zimbardo conclude?
Social roles do have a strong influence over behaviour.
What are the evaluation points for SPE?
\+ high degree of control - demand characteristics - replication conduction for the BBC - major ethical issues \+ practical applications
One strength of ZImbardos SPE was that it had a high degree of control
E: Zimbardo had control over who was selected (i.e. only emotionally stable participants) and randomly allocating participants to social roles.
E: by randomly allocating roles, Zimbardo was able to rule out individual differences as an explanation because if the guards and prisoners behaved very differently, this must have been due to the pressures of the situation rather then their personalities.
L: high internal validity
One criticism of the SPE is that it suffered from demand characteristics
E: some may have been play acting
E: some researchers presented details of the SPE to a group of students who had never heard of It before, they correctly guessed that ordinary people would start to act like prisoners and guards. One guard even based his role on the brutal character from cool hand Luke.
L: reduces the internal validity.
Evidence against comes from a replication conduction from the BBC
E: Reicher and Haslam 2006 found it was the prisoners and not the guards who eventually took control of the prison.
E: prisoners developed a shared social identity which allowed them to act with a shared purpose, whilst the guards did not (social identity theory)
L: This suggests that we do not automatically conform to social roles and other factors (such as developing a shared group identity) play a role too.
A criticism of the SPE is that it raised major ethical issues
E: Although there was no deception involved and participants did give consent, it is questionable whether the participants were fully aware of the possible harm they might suffer.
E: ZImbardo that acknowledges study should have stopped sooner (lack fo protection from harm) as some of the participants were experiencing severe emotional distress and some argue that this harm should have been anticipated.
L: goes against the ethical code of conduct
One strength of the research is that it may have practical applications
E: helped to highlight the ways in which ordinary emotionally stable people an behave extremely differently in the right social context and could be used to help prevent brutality in other prison like context
E: similar Social pressures may have played a role in the brutality shown at Abu Ghraib prison.
L: help prevent future brutality by having a greater awareness of the issues raised.
