Conformity To Social Roles - Zimbardo

Question 1

Outline Zimbardo’s research into conformity to social roles (6 marks)

Answer 1

Zimbardo investigated how freely people would conform to the roles of a guard and prisoner in a role playing exercise that recreated prison life. He used a sample of 24 ‘emotionally stable’ US male university students. The volunteers were randomly allocated to the role of a prisoner or guard where the prisoners were arrested at their homes, taken to prison, searched, deloused and dressed in smock uniforms. They were referred to as a number rather than by name. The guards were given uniforms, a night stick and mirrored glasses, they were told to keep the prisoners under control but use no physical violence. Zimbardo took on the role of prison superintendent, if a prisoner wanted to leave, they had to go through a parole process. It was found that within a day, prisoners rebelled and ripped off their numbers and the guards responded by locking them in their cells and confiscating their blankets. As the experiment continued, the punishment by the guards escalated, the prisoners were humiliated and deprived of sleep. Three prisoners were released early due to showing symptoms of psychological disturbance. The role play had been intended to run for two weeks but was called off after just six days. He concluded that the guards, prisoners and researchers conformed to their role within the prison.

Question 2

Discuss Zimbardos research into conformity to social roles (3 x AO3)

Answer 2

1. One criticism of Zimbardo’s research into conformity to social roles is that it is prone to demand characteristics. This is because within his procedure, Zimbardo took on the role of the prison superintendent. Therefore, Zimbardo could have influenced how the participants acted within the study. For example, they may have conformed to their role because this is what they believed Zimbardo wanted them to do, rather than because they were actually conforming to their social role of prisoner or guard due to the prison environment. Therefore, lowering the internal validity of the research into conformity to social roles.
2. A further weakness of Zimbardo’s research is that there were major ethical issues. There was a lack of informed consent, as the prisoners did not consent to being arrested at their homes. In addition, there was a lack of the right to withdraw, when one prisoner wanted to leave he spoke to Zimbardo and had to ask to be ‘released’ from the prison, Zimbardo responded as the superintendent, rather than an experimenter with a responsibility to the participant. Finally, the prisoners were not protected from harm as some showed signs of psychological disturbance. Therefore, lowering the validity of Zimbardos research into conformity to social roles.
3. Zimbardo’s research has practical applications as it can be used to predict and explain behaviour in the real world. The actions displayed by soldiers in Abu Ghraib military prison in Iraq were found to be similar to Zimbardo’s findings as prisoners were tortured, humiliated and physically abused. Therefore, Zimbardo’s research can be used when developing prevention programmes to be used for training purposes in prisons. This means that it has become an important part of applied psychology and has good external validity.