Conformity To Social Roles - Zimbardo Flashcards
Define social roles
The behaviours expected of an individual who occupies a given social position
Outline what is meant by conformity to social roles
When an individual adopts a certain behaviour and belief due to the expectations that arise out of the role they play in society and the social situation but stop when they are out of that situation
What key study investigated conformity to social roles and what question did they want to answer?
Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
“Do prison guards behave brutally because they have sadistic personalities or is it the situation that creates this behaviour”
Sample and procedure of Zimbardo’s study
24 male undergrad student volunteers.
All participants were psychological and physically screened to ensure they were fit to partake in the experiment. Participants were randomly assigned either the role of ‘prisoner’ or ‘guard’.
‘Prisoners’ were arrested at home and were given uniform and assigned ID numbers. “Guards’ were given uniform, mirrored glasses and wooden clubs and told they had complete power over prisoners
How did guards show conformity to their roles
Guards abused and harassed prisoners – frequent headcounts in middle of night, forcing prisoners to clean toilets with their bare hands, punishing for smallest misdemeanour
How did prisoners show conformity to their roles?
Prisoners wholly accepted the harsh treatment and became passive and subdued – five participants had to be withdrawn early for mental distress
After how many days was the prison experiment stopped v how long it was meant to last.
Stopped after 6 days instead of 14 as the behaviour of the guards became a threat t the prisoners psychological and physical health.
Conclusions of the Zimbardo study
Demonstrates the power of social roles of people’s behaviour = both the prisoners and guards conformed to roles eve when it went against moral principles.
2 Strengths of Zimbardo’s study
High Internal validity: High control over variables. Emotionally stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to their roles to try and rule out personality differences. If guards and prisoners behaved very differently but in those roles only by chance, their behaviour must have been due to the pressures of the situation.
Real life application: Used to explain events such as the military prisons in Iraq notorious for the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers. Specificslly, Zimbardo has spoken extensively about the similarities between the physical torture, abuse and assault by American militsry personnel in Abu Ghraib prison and the Stanford prison experiment.
Zimbardo believed the guards were victims of situational factors. These factors included a lack of training, boredom and no accountability to higher authority.
If we are aware of these factors and aware that it can lead to abuse, we can try and prevent this happening in the future
2 Limitations of Zimbardo’s Study and 2 counters
Demand Characteristics - Participants may have been guessing how the experimenter wanted them to act rather than conforming to their social roles. Some details of the procedure presented to a sample of students who had never heard of the study. The majority guessed correctly that the aim was to show ordinary people assigned to the role of guard and prisoner would act like real prisoner and guards. Banuazizi and Movahedi (1975) argued the participants were only play acting. One of the guards claimed he has based his character on a movie
COUNTER - Zimbardo pointed to evidence that the situation was very real to the participants. 90% prisoner conversations about prisoner life. Prisoner 416 expressed the view that the prison was real but run by psychologists rather than the government.
Ethical issues - Participants experienced severe emotional distress, breaching protection from psychological harm. Also, Zimbardo played a dual role as a researcher but also prisoner superintendent. One student spoke to Zimbardo in his role of superintendent wanting to leave the study and he responded as a superintendent rather than a researcher with a duty of care to his participants. Therefore, whilst the right to withdraw from the prisom was given, the mechanisms set up by Zimbardo made this difficult
