Evaluation of Zimbardo's experiment

Question 1

strength

Answer 1

-Zimbardo and colleagues had control over key variables
-participants were screened to ensure they were emotionally stable
-therefore ruled out individual differences
-allows to identify cause and effect
-increases internal validity
-rules out influence of confounding variables

Question 2

limitation (realism)

Answer 2

-didn’t have realism of true prison
-Banu Azizi and Movahedi argued participants were play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role
-participants performances were based on their steroeotypes e.g. one guards claimed he had based his role on a brutal character from the film Cool Hand Luke
-explain why the prisoners rioted
-findings tell us little about conformity in actual prisons

Question 3

limitation (realism) counterpoint

Answer 3

-McDermott argues that the participants did behave as if the prison was real to them
-90% of prisoners convos about prison life
-prisoner 416 explained how he believed prison was real but just run by psychologists
-suggests the SPE did replicate social roles of prisoners and guards giving high degree of internal validity

Question 4

limitation (exaggeration)

Answer 4

-Zimbardo may have exaggerated power of social roles to influence behaviour
-e.g. 1/3 of guards actually behaved brutally, another 1/3 tried to apply rules fairly and the others actively tried to help and support the prisoners
-they sympathised, offered cigarettes and reinstated privileges (Zimbardo, 2007)
-suggests Zimbardo overstated his view that participants were conforming to social roles and minimised influence of dispositional factors like personality

Question 5

limitation (demand characteristics)

Answer 5

-banuazizi and Movahedi presented some detials of SPE experimental procedure to a large sample of students who never heard of the study
-vast majority of students guessed the aims of the study
-argued that zimbardos guards and prisoners was not due to compelling environment but response to powerful demand characteristics
-reducing the internal validity

Question 6

limitation (ethics)

Answer 6

-It was considered ethical because it followed guidelines of the Stanford uni
-There was no deception with all participants being told their usual rights would be suspended
-as the study progressed, ethical issues did arise and the study should have been stopped earlier
-many participants experienced emotional stress and weren’t protected from harm
-debriefing didn’t occur until several years after the study had been finished
-begs question of whether the benefits outweigh the costs