Conformity to social roles (Zimbardo) Flashcards
Real life example (findings)
– A strength of the findings of Zimbardo’s study, it gives us an understanding of why situations this happen in Abu Ghraib, a military prison in Iraq notorious for the torture and abuse of Iraq prisoners
by US soldiers in 2003/2004, he believed that the guards who committed the abuse in the prison were victims of situational factors that made abuse more likely. Zimbardo suggests that situational
factors such as lack of training, boredom and no accountability to higher authority were present both in the SPE and at Abu Ghraib. These, combined with an opportunity to misuse the power associated with the assigned role of ‘guard’, led to the prisoner abuses in both situations. One strength of the findings is that it has increased our understanding of the power of the situation. Zimbardo’s research helped to lead to beneficial reforms within prison systems and the way real prisoners were treated, highlighting its real-life application.
Ethical Issues-(procedure)
A major problem with the procedure of Zimbardo’s study are the ethical issues that it raised. Ethical issue arose due to Zimbardo’s dual role and participants were not protected from psychological harm. For example, a student who wanted to leave the study spoke to Zimbardo in his role as supervisor and the conversation was conducted on the basis that the student was a prisoner in a prison, asking to be ‘released’. Zimbardo responded to him as a superintendent worried about the running of his prison rather than a researcher with responsibilities to his participants. This is a weakness of the procedure of Zimbardo’s research, because he failed to protect his participants from psychological harm by making the right to withdraw difficult, even when the participants made him aware of their distress. Despite this,
Zimbardo eventually acknowledged this and stopped the study after 6 days as so many of the participants were experiencing emotional distress.
Role of dispositional influences was ignored (findings)
Zimbardo’s findings and conclusions was that he exaggerated the role
of the environment. Fromm (1973) accused Zimbardo of exaggerating
the power of the situation to influence behaviour, and minimising the role of personality factors (dispositional influences). For example, only a minority of the guards (about 1/3) behaved in a brutal manner and another third were keen on applying the rules fairly. The rest actively
tried to help and support the prisoners, sympathising with them, offering them cigarettes and reinstating privileges (Zimbardo, 2007). The differences in the guards’ behaviour showed that they could exercise right and wrong choices despite situational pressures to conform to a role. This is a limitation
of the findings of the study because both situational and dispositional factors should be considered in order to draw accurate conclusions of conformity to social roles. (Note
evalaution point for findings NOT procedure)
