conformity to social roles, Zimbardo Flashcards
who conducted the standford prison study?
Zimbardo ,1973
what was the aim of Zimbardo’s study?
to investigate how people would conform to the roles of guards and prisoners in a role-play situations that stimulated a prison.
what was the procedure of Zimbardo’s study?
-used volunteer pp from a newspaper add
-24 male students where chosen and tested psychologically
-they didn’t know which group they were in until the police arrested them from their houses (uninformed consent)
-prisoners were taken to a mock prison where they were stripped naked and deloused and had their personal belongings removed
-prisoners were given ID numbers and the guards were given uniforms
what did Zimbardo find?
it was found that people conformed to the social roles because of demand characteristics and they acted how they felt they should
list the strengths of the standford prison study.
-strong internal validity
90% of conversations between prisoners were about prison life
-practical applications
it changed how US prisons were run
list the weaknesses for the standford prison study.
-lacks ecological validity
used all male pp and can’t be used for other countries
-not all guards conformed
most guards said that they “played a character”
what did Reicher and Haslam do?
BBC prison study 2006
what procedure did the BBC prison study of 2006 use?
-15 men
-8 days
what was different about the 2006 prison study and Zimbardo’s?
-during the 2006 prison study, they had to follow the ethical guidelines that came about after the original standford study.
-the prisoners also started to identify as a group and challenged the authority of the guards.
evaluate the 2006 BBC prison study.
+looked at conformity to social roles without harming participants
-still lacked population validity
