Conformity to social roles - Zimbardo (1971) Flashcards
Aim
To investigate conformity to social roles by role-playing as either a prisoner or a guard and to find out if the conforming behaviour was due to the nature of the person (dispositional factors) or the prison context (situational factors).
Procedure
- Sample of 24 American, male, undergraduate volunteers.
- They were randomly allocated the role of a prisoner or a guard.
- This was a controlled, observational study which was made as realistic as possible.
- The ‘prisoners’ were arrested at their homes and taken to the police station before being transferred to the prison. Once at the mock prison, they were deloused, issued with a prison uniform, and an ID number which they were then addressed by.
- The ‘guards’ were also issued with uniforms and 16 rules, which they were asked to enforce to maintain a ‘reasonable degree of order’.
- Interactions between prisoners and guards, mood state, self-perception, and coping behaviour were observed as indicators of conformity.
- Data collected via videotape, audiotape, direct observation, questionnaires, and interviews.
Findings
- An extremely high level of conformity to social roles observed in both the prisoners and the guards.
- Guards conformed to a sadistic role, e.g., readily issuing punishments for misbehaving prisoners.
- Initially, punishment involved loss of privileges, but later punishments included food and sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and humiliation, e.g., cleaning the toilet with their bare hands.
- After initial resistance, prisoners became passive, excessively obedient, showed a flattered mood, and a distorted perception of self.
- 5 prisoners were released early due to extreme emotional disturbance.
- The study stopped on the 6th day instead of running 2 weeks as planned.
Conclusion
This research demonstrates the strength of conformity as a form of social influence. Reports after the study showed that participants felt that they had acted out of character, and personality tests indicated no significant differences between the prisoners’ and guards’ personality. Therefore, the findings support a situational explanation of social influence rather than a dispositional one.
Strength
Point: A major strength of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment is that it had a high control over key variables.
Evidence: Zimbardo carefully selected participants by ensuring that they were psychologically and emotionally fit despite them being volunteers. Furthermore, participants were randomly assigned to their roles as either prisoners or guards, preventing the likelihood of bias as a result of pre-existing personality and behavioural traits, ensuring that the study solely reflected the nature of the social roles they were placed in.
Justification: The random allocation of roles removes individual differences as a confounding variable and guarantees that situational factors alone were responsible for the extreme behaviours observed instead of dispositional factors. In addition, since all participants had similar psychological profiles at the start, the dramatic changes in behaviour during the investigation can be attributed to the powerful influence of social roles and the prison environment.
Implication: This increases the internal validity of the study, as it provides strong evidence that people conform to the roles that they are given due to situational pressures rather than inherent personality traits. The high level of experimental control also makes it easier to replicate in future studies, reinforcing its reliability.
Weakness
Point: A limitation of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment is that it did not fully replicate a real-life prison environment.
Evidence: The experiment was conducted in a mock prison, which did not have the traditional structure of an actual prison. For example, the guards did not have formal training, and the prisoners had not committed real crimes, meaning they lacked the guilt and psychological burden that would be felt by real inmates. Additionally, the guards were assigned uniforms and roles, but their behaviours were influenced by the artificial nature of the setting rather than genuine authority dynamics.
Justification: Due to this staged and temporary situation, participants may have been acting in ways they thought were expected, rather than behaving as real prisoners and guards would. This means that the results may be more reflective of demand characteristics rather than actual conformity to social roles.
Implication: As a result, this lowers the internal validity of the study as the findings don’t measure what it actually intends to measure - conformity to social roles, however ecological validity is also reduced as the findings may not provide a truly accurate explanation of how social roles influence behaviour in real-life institutional settings.
Counterargument: However, the participants’ behaviour suggests that they were not simply play-acting, but genuinely identifying with their roles as prisoners and guards.
Evidence: If the prisoners had only been acting, they would not have displayed such severe emotional distress, yet many showed extreme anxiety and even breakdowns, leading to the study stopping on the 6th day instead of running 2 weeks as planned. 5 prisoners were even released early due to the extremity of the psychological disturbance they had felt. Similarly, the guards’ aggression escalated over time, suggesting that their behaviour was not simply an act but rather a genuine internalisation of their roles.
Justification: This suggests that social roles strongly influenced participants’ behaviour. The fact that participants’ actions intensified over time suggests that they were immersed in their roles, rather than just performing based on stereotypes.
Implication: This increases the internal validity of this study as such internalisation could have meant that the study was assessing what it intended to instead of being influenced by demand characteristics, but this also increases its ecological validity, as it demonstrates that the power of social roles can genuinely shape behaviour, especially in such institutions where individuals are encouraged to conform to assigned roles.
Weakness
Point: A limitation of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment is that it lacked ethical consideration on multiple aspects.
Evidence: Participants were not fully informed about key aspects of the study, such as being publicly arrested at their homes, which may have caused distress. Additionally, they were subjected to psychological harm and humiliation, with prisoners experiencing emotional breakdowns and guards becoming increasingly aggressive eventually causing 5 prisoners to be released early and for the study to end on the 6th day instead of running 2 weeks as planned. This ultimately means that the participants weren’t protected from harm and so Zimbardo, as the researcher and prison superintendent, failed to intervene quickly enough to protect the participants. Furthermore, there was no thorough, personal debriefing immediately after the study to address their experiences.
Justification: The lack of adequate safeguards meant that participants were susceptible to severe psychological and emotional harm, violating the ethical principle of protection from harm. Additionally, while Zimbardo obtained general consent, participants were not fully aware of some of the procedures that would occur, i.e. getting arrested at their houses as well as the inevitable psychological effects that accompanied the investigation. Although participants had the right to withdraw, the intense nature of the study and Zimbaro’s role in conducting it may have caused the participants to feel pressured to continue.
Implication: This raises concerns about the ethical credibility of the study as it fails to meet the fundamental ethical guidelines that are required to be met amongst psychological research. As a result, Zimbardo’s study would likely not be approved under modern ethical standards, highlighting the need for stricter ethical guidelines in psychological research.
Counterargument: Despite ethical criticisms,, Zimbardo defended the Stanford Prison Experiment, claiming that ethical issues were minimised as much as possible.
Evidence: He obtained written informed consent from all participants before the study began, ensuring they were aware of the general nature of the experiment. Additionally, after the study ended, Zimbardo provided a full debriefing to help participants process their experiences and maintained contact with them for a year to monitor and compensate for any long-term psychological effects.
Justification: These measures suggest that Zimbardo made efforts to uphold ethical standards, even if some harm was caused during the experiment. The fact that participants were at the least given a general debrief and had given some consent, suggests that Zimbardo took it upon himself to minimise potential distress.
Implication: This ultimately demonstrates that there is some valuable psychological insight behind Zimbardo’s study despite ethical concerns as he was able to portray the strength of conformity as a form of social influence whilst maintaining some ethical precepts.
Weakness
