conformity to social roles: zimbardo's research

Question 1

why did zimbardo conduct this research?

Answer 1

• in the 1970s there had been many prison riots and prison guard brutality cases taking place in america
• zimbardo wanted to know why prison guards behave brutally and what the psychological effects were of becoming a prison guard or prisoner

Question 2

SPE: method

Answer 2

• zimbardo et al. (1973) set up a mock prison in the basement of the psychology department at stanford university
• they selected 21 men, all male psychology students at stanford university, who tested as ‘emotionally stable’
• the students were randomly assigned to play the role of prison guard or prisoner
• prisoners and guards were encouraged to conform to social roles both through the uniform they wore and also instructions about their behaviour

Question 3

SPE: uniforms

Answer 3

• prisoners were given a loose smock to wear and a cap to cover their hair, and they were identified by number; their names were never used
• the guards had their own uniform reflecting the status of their role, with a wooden club, handcuffs and mirror shades

Question 4

what was the purpose of the uniforms?

Answer 4

• to create a loss of personal identity (de-indivdualisation)
• it meant they were more likely to conform to the perceived social role

Question 5

SPE: instructions about behaviour

Answer 5

• prisoners were further encouraged to identify with their role by several procedures
  > eg. rather than leaving the study early, prisoners could ‘apply for parole’
• the guards were encouraged to play their role by being reminded that they had complete power over the prisoners

Question 6

findings: asserting authority

Answer 6

• within hours of beginning the experiment, some guards began to harass prisoners
  > at 2:30 am, prisoners were awakened from sleep by blasting whistles for the first of many “counts”
• the counts served as a way to familiarising the prisoners with their numbers
  > it also provided a regular occasion for the guards to exercise control over the prisoners
• the prisoners also adopted prisoner-like behaviour. eg. they talked about prison issues a lot of the time and ‘told tales’ on each to the guards
• they started taking the prison rules very seriously, as though they were there for the prisoners’ benefit and infringement would spell disaster for all of them
• some even began siding with the guards against prisoners who did not obey the rules

Question 7

findings: physical punishment

Answer 7

• push ups were a common form of physical punishment imposed by the guards
• one of the guards stepped on the prisoners’ backs while they did push-ups or made prisoners sit on the backs of fellow prisoners doing their push-ups

Question 8

findings: rebellion

Answer 8

• on the 2nd day, the prisoners removed their stocking caps, ripped off their numbers and barricaded themselves inside the cells by putting their beds against the door
• guards called in reinforcements
• the three guards who were waiting on stand-by duty came in and the night shift guards voluntarily remained on duty
• the ringleaders of the prisoner rebellion were placed into solitary confinement
• after this, the guards generally began to harass and intimidate the prisoners
• over the next few days, the relationship between the guards and the prisoners changed, with a change in one leading to a change in the other

Question 9

what was the change in behaviour of the prisoners and guards as a result of the rebellion?

Answer 9

• as prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive and assertive
• they demanded ever greater obedience from the prisoners
• the prisoners were dependent on the guards for everything so tried to find ways to please the guards, such as ‘telling tales’ on fellow prisoners

Question 10

findings: mental breakdowns (prisoner #8612)

Answer 10

• less than 36 hours into the experiment, prisoner #8612 began suffering from acute emotional disturbance, disorganised thinking, uncontrollable crying, and rage
• soon, he “began to act ‘crazy’, to scream, to curse, to go into a rage that seemed out of control”
• at this point the psychologists realised they had to let him out

Question 11

findings: mental breakdowns (prisoner #819)

Answer 11

• # 819 broke down and cried hysterically when talking to a priest that was invited to evaluate the prison situation
• psychologists tried to get him to agree to leave the experiment, but he said he couldn’t because he was labelled as a bad prisoner
• he would also refer to his identity as #819 rather than his own name

Question 12

findings: end to the experiment

Answer 12

• the experiment only lasted for 6 days instead of the intended 14
• christina maslach, a recent stanford phd brough in the conduct interviews with the guards and prisoners strongly objected when she saw the prisoners being abused by the guards

Question 13

what did zimbardo (2008) note about his behaviour in the experiment

Answer 13

“it wasn’t until much later that i realised how far into my prison role i was at that point - that i was thinking like a prison superintendent rather than a research psychologist”

Question 14

what conclusions can be drawn related to social roles?

Answer 14

• one explanation for why the participants’ reactions were so extreme in this study could be that they conformed to social roles
• a role is a part you play during your life and each role requires a different behaviour
  > eg. when you start a new job, you change your behaviour to suit
• in zimbardo’s study, the students were given new roles, prisoner or guard, and they simply conformed to the behaviour of these roles

Question 15

how can deindividualisation also explain the behaviour of the participants, especially the guards?

Answer 15

• deindividualisation is a state when you become so immersed in the norms of the group that you lose your sense of identity and personal responsibility
• the guards may have been so sadistic because they did not feel what happened was down to them personally; it was a group norm

Question 16

evaluation: study maintained some degree of control over its variables

Answer 16

• situation was tightly controlled eg. guards and prisoners were randomly allocated and were selected using a stringent criterion
• guards were assigned by chance so their behaviour was due to the pressures of the situation, not their personality
• this increases the study’s internal validity

Question 17

evaluation: good ecological validity

Answer 17

• zimbardo went to great extremes in making the study as true to life as possible
• eg. he had prisoners arrested from their homes

Question 18

evaluation: unrepresentative sample

Answer 18

since the experiment was conducted using 24 ‘normal’, healthy male college students who were predominantly middle class and white (one was described as oriental), we have to be careful generalising the results to other people

Question 19

evaluation: lack of ecological validity

Answer 19

• for practical and ethical reasons, the simulated prison could not totally be realistic
• many unpleasant aspects of prison life were absent eg. homosexuality, racism, beatings and threats to life
• maximum anticipated sentence was two weeks, so it is possible that the study does not serve as a meaningful comparison to real prison environments were sentences were likely to be far longer

Question 20

evaluation: banuazizi and mohavedi (1975) - stereotypes

Answer 20

• they argued that they were merely play-acting based on stereotypes of how they were supposed to behave
• one guard based his role on a character from the film ‘cool hand luke’
• prisoners rioted because they thought that’s what real prisoners have done (demand characteristics)

Question 21

evaluation: participants did behave as if the prison was real to them (mark mcdermott, 2019); high internal validity

Answer 21

• 90% of prisoners’ conversations were about prison life
• amongst themselves, they discussed how it was impossible to leave the SPE because their ‘sentences’ were over
• prisoner #416 later explained how he believed the prison was a real one, but run by psychologists than the government
• when the prisoners were introduced to a priest, they referred to themselves by their prison number, rather than their first name. some even asked him to get a lawyer to help get them out
• guards, too, rarely exchanged personal information during their relaxation breaks
  > they talked about ‘problem prisoners’, or other prison topics, or did not talk at all
• guards were always on time and even worked overtime for no extra pay

Question 22

evaluation: zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles to influence behaviour (fromm 1973)

Answer 22

• only 1/3 of the guards actually behaved in a brutal way
• 1/3 tried to apply the rules fairly
• rest tried to actively help and support the prisoners. they sympathised, offered cigarettes and reinstated privileges (zimbardo 2007)
• most guards were able to resist situational pressures to conform to a brutal role
• this suggests that zimbardo overstated his view that SPE participants were conforming to social roles and minimised the influence of dispositional factors (eg. personality)

Question 23

evaluation: alternative explanation

Answer 23

• tajfel’s (1981) social identity theory explains that guards failed to develop shared social identity as a group but the prisoners did
• this suggests that the brutality of the guards in the original study was due to a shared social identity as a cohesive group rather than conformity to their social roles

Question 24

evaluation: reicher and haslam (2006)

Answer 24

• criticse zimbardo’s explanation (that guards and prisoners’ behaviour was because they naturally and easily conformed to their social roles) because it does not account for the behaviour of the non-brutal guards
• they instead used social identity theory to argue that the ‘guards’ had to actively identify with their social roles to act as they did
• they also partially replicated the SPE, but with different findings
  > prisoners eventually took control

Question 25

ethical defences: approval for study

Answer 25

• approval for the study was given from the office of naval research, the psychology department and the university committee of human experimentation
• this committee also did not anticipate the prisoners’ extreme reactions that were to follow

Question 26

ethical defences: little deception

Answer 26

• the only deception involved was to do with the arrest of the prisoners at the beginning of the experiment
• the prisoners were not told partly because final approval from the police wasn’t given until minutes before the participants decided to participate, and partly because the researchers wanted the arrests to come as a surprise
• however this was a breach of the ethics of zimbardo’s own contract that all of the participants had signed

Question 27

ethical defences: experiment was abandoned

Answer 27

when zimbardo realised just how much the prisoners disliked the experience, which was unexpected, the experiment was abandoned

Question 28

ethical defences: wanted to cause the least distress

Answer 28

• alternative methodologies were looked at which would cause less distress to the participants
• nothing suitable could be found that would also give them the desired information

Question 29

ethical defences: extensive debriefing

Answer 29

extensive group and individual debriefing sessions were held and all participants returned post-experimental questionnaires several weeks, then several months later, then at yearly intervals