Conformity to Social Roles - Haney and Zimbardo

Question 1

Outline the procedure of the study

Answer 1

● 24 male American undergraduate volunteers.
● Volunteer sample from a newspaper advert, were paid $15 a day to take part in a two-week simulation of prison life.
● They were randomly allocated to either the role of prisoner or guard.
● This was a controlled observation study, which was made as realistic as possible.
= Eg ‘prisoners’ were arrested at their homes and taken to a police station before transfer to the ‘prison’. Once at the mock prison they were deloused, issued with a prison uniform, and an ID number
● The guards were also issued with uniforms and 16 rules, which they were asked to enforce to maintain a ‘reasonable degree of order’.
● Data was collected via videotape, audiotape, direct observation, questionnaires, and interviews.

Question 2

What were the findings of the study?

Answer 2

• High levels of conformity to social roles was observed in both the guards and the prisoners:
• The ‘guards’ conformed to a sadistic role, e.g., they readily issued punishments for prisoner misbehaviour
• Some guards were so enthusiastic in their role that they volunteered to do extra hours without pay.
  -The study had to be stopped on the sixth day instead of two weeks as planned because of the extreme behaviour of the ‘guards’.

Question 3

What were the conclusions of the study?

Answer 3

Zimbardo et al suggested that two processes can explain the prisoners’ final ‘submission’:

• Deindividuation = The prisoners lost their sense of individuality because of what they wore. They followed the perceived role of a prison guard. Both conformed to social roles.
• Learned helplessness = In the mock prison the unpredictable decisions of the guards led the prisoners to give up responding.

Question 4

A03 - What are the ethical issues?

Answer 4

-The study caused unacceptable levels of psychological harm.
- Zimbardo acknowledges that perhaps the study should have been stopped earlier as so many participants were experiencing emotional distress.
- He attempted to minimise harm by carrying out debriefing sessions for several years afterwards and concluded that there were no lasting negative effects.
- Zimbardo was wrong to act as both prison-superintendent and chief researcher as this produced a conflict of roles whereby he lost sight of the harm being done to participants.

Question 5

A03 - Behaviour of P’S

Answer 5

• The behaviours of Ps provide mixed support for Zimbardo’s conclusions.
• The stark differences between the guards and prisoners’ behaviours show the influence that the situation had on the groups. -However, these differences also suggest that individual differences play a role too:
• About a third of the guards became tyrannical. In contrast, other guards were friendly to the prisoners.
  =Therefore, although some conformity to social roles was shown, this conclusion cannot be generalised to everyone without further research into variables affecting behaviour.

Question 6

A03 - Behaviour of guards

Answer 6

• The behaviours shown in this story do seem to also have real world applications.
• For example, in 2004, accounts of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, rape and murder of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came to public attention when photos of the abuse emerged.
• These acts were committed by military police personnel of the United States Army, many of whom later argued that they were just ‘following orders’ or carrying out the roles given to them.
  -Therefore, Zimbardo’s study may offer valuable insight into human behaviour in these situations.