Lesson 5 - Conformity to Social Roles Flashcards
What are social roles ?
Social roles are behaviours expected from and individual who holds a social position or status. People can conform to the social roles assigned to them.
What was Zimbardo’s study ?
A simulated prison was created in the basement of the Stanford University Psychology department. 24 emotionally and psychologically stable men were recruited and randomly assigned to prisoner or guard. To find his participants he first gave an ad to which 70 people responded. Then they were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse. The 24 participants were payed $15 a day. The guards worked in sets of 3 being replaced after 8 hour shifts. Guards were told to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain order except the use of physical violence.
How did Zimbardo make his study as realistic as possible ?
There was a solitary confinement cell for the prisoners who misbehaved.
They were arrested in their own homes, without warning, and got ‘booked’, fingerprinted and photographed.
They were blindfolded and driven to the destination.
When they arrived, they were stripped naked, had all their belongings taken away, were given prison clothes and bedding and were only referred to by their numbers.
All guards were in a uniform of khaki, carried a whistle around a a billy club borrowed from the police. They also had special sunglasses so they would not make eye contact with the prisoners.
What were the results of Zimbardo’s experiment ?
On the second day, the prisoners tried to rebel. The guards put down this rebellion and over the next couple days, the guards got brutal, cruel and aggressive. The prisoners became passive and depressed as the guards used verbal abuse, forced them to do press ups, pushed them into urinals and left them in pitch black cupboards for hours. The guards became so aggressive that the study had to be ended in 6 days instead of 2 weeks. Zimbardo’s girlfriend had encouraged the experiment be terminated after she interviewed the prisoners and guards.
What were the strengths of Zimbardo’s experiment ?
There was a good level of control over variables. This is because Zimbardo and his colleagues selected the participants that were the most emotionally stable. There was also no bias as each prisoner was assigned to their role randomly. This means the study had a high level of internal validity which means we can be more confident in drawing conclusions.
There was good application. This is because of the relevance between the SPE and Abu Ghraib. From 2003-2004 USA Military Police committed serious human rights violations against Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo argues the same conformity to social roles was in effect there that there was in the SPE.
What were the weaknesses of Zimbardo’s experiment ?
There was a lack of research support. When this experiment was redone by Reicher and Haslam (2006) on BBC, the results were different. In this study it was the prisoners who eventually took control over the mock prison.
Another weakness is that there were ethical issues. A major ethical issue arose because of Zimbardo’s dual role in the study. Once a prisoner asked to leave but Zimbardo replies as a superintendent instead of a researcher with responsibility towards his participant. This is not right.
Another ethical issue was that there was a lack of informed consent. The prisoners did not know that they were going to be arrested in their own homes. Doing this could have caused them a lot of distress and would have scarred the prisoners quite a bit.