Conformity to social roles (Zimbardo's research)

Question 1

Outline Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment

Answer 1

• they advertised for students and chose those who were deemed ‘emotionally stable’
• they were then randomly assigned roles, either prisoner or guard
• prisoners were arrested at their homes by the local police
• prisoners were blind folded, strip-searched, deloused and issued a uniform and a number, they were only addressed as the number they were given (dehumanising prisoners)
• social roles strictly divided
• 16 rules, guards worked in shifts of 3

Question 2

What were his findings

Answer 2

• study was stopped after six days instead of the intended 14
• harsh treatments from the gaurds and protest from the prisoners turning to silence as they were punished more every day
• prisoners became subdued, depressed and anxious
• 1 released on the first day
• 2 more on the fourth day
• one went on hunger strike
• guards became more brutal & aggressive

Question 3

Give a strength of the SPE

Answer 3

• researchers had some control over variables, eg the selection of the ppts
• this increases internal validity of the study

Question 4

Give a limitation of the SPE

Answer 4

• lack of realism; Banuazizi and Mohavedi argued ppts were play-acting, performances were based on steryotypes, huge example is that one of the guards claimed to base his role off of a brutal character from the film cool hand luke
• Zimbardo pointed to quantitive data collected during the procedure showed 90% of prisoners conversations were about prison life, seems the situation was real to ppts, giving study high internal validity