D Mock - Zimbardo Flashcards
What year did Zimbardo’s Standford Prison experiment take place?
1973
What are social roles?
The ‘parts’ people play as members of various social groups.
What are social roles accompanied by?
Expectations we and others have of what is appropriate behaviour in each role.
What was Zimbardo’s aim?
To investigate how readily people conform to the expectations they have about social roles.
What was Zimbardo’s method?
He randomly allocated volunteers to ‘prisoner’ or ‘guard’ roles in a fake prison setting.
What were the results of Zimbardo’s experiment?
The guards, permitted to devise most of the rules, harassed the prisoners.
After 2 days in the experiment, the prisoners began to rebel against the guards.
The experiment was discontinued after 6 days of the two weeks originally planned.
This was due to the number of prisoners being released early.
What was the conclusion of Zimbardo’s study?
The ‘prison’ environment was an important factor in creating the guards’ brutal behaviour.
Zimbardo believed people will conform to the social roles they’re expected to play, and that such roles shape a person’s attitudes and behaviour.
Zimbardo’s experiment is an example of what type of observation?
Controlled observation
Which university was Zimbardo’s study carried out in?
Stanford University basement
Name 2 ethical issues of Zimbardo’s study?
Lack of informed consent.
Failure to protect from harm
Zimbardo’s study had high levels of control over some variables, for example selection of participants. Describe this:
Zimbardo selected emotionally stable participants, who were randomly assigned to their roles.
This helped to rule out individual personality differences affecting the results.
It has been argued that participants were merely play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to their role. Their performances were based on ___________ of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave.
For example, one of the ______ claimed he based his role on a brutal character from a ____ he had seen.
This would also explain why the prisoners rioted if they believed that’s what they thought prisoners really did.
However, data gathered by Zimbardo showed that __% of prisoners’ conversations were about prison life, suggesting the situation was real to them and therefore had high internal validity.
stereotypes
guards
film
90%
Zimbardo could be accused of ____________ the power of situational factors, and minimising the role of personality factors.
For example, only about a _____ of guards behaved in a brutal manner. Another third we’re keen on applying the rules fairly. The rest actively tried to help and support the prisoners.
This suggests Zimbardo’s conclusion that participants were conforming to social roles may be over-______.
The differences in the guards’ behaviour indicate they were able to exercise right and wrong choices, despite situational _________ to conform to a role.
exaggerating
third
stated
pressures
A partial replication of the Stanford prison simulation experiment in 2006 found very ________ findings to Zimbardo.
different
Zimbardo’s experiment has been criticised as being _________, due to the humiliation and distress caused to the prisoners. Zimbardo appeared to lose sight of the harm being done as he played the role of the prison ‘chief superintendent’ during the experiment.
unethical
