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2023-2025 Year 12 A-Level Psychology > Social Influence: Conformity To Social Roles > Flashcards

Social Influence: Conformity To Social Roles Flashcards

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1
Q

Who studied conformity to social roles?

A

Zimbardo

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2
Q

What is meant by social roles?

A

Social roles are that parts that people play as members of various social groups e.g. teachers/students. These are accompanied by expectations that we and other have of what appropriate behaviour is.

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3
Q

What do individuals do in order to conform to social roles?

A

Individuals internalise the expectations to shape their behaviour.

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4
Q

Why was Zimbardo interested in studying conformity to social roles (background context)?

A

In the 1970’s - increased prison riots and police brutality in America and Zimbardo was interested in investigating why the prison guards behaved so brutally - was it due to their personalities or were they just conforming to their social role of a guard?

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5
Q

What was the aim of Zimbardo’s research?

A

To investigate how freely people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that re-created prison life.

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6
Q

What sampling technique did Zimbardo use and how were they recruited?

A

Volunteer sampling - recruited via newspaper advertisement.

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7
Q

What was Zimbardo’s sample?

A

24 ‘emotionally stable’ (determined by psychological testing prior to the study) American male university students

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8
Q

What was the method of Zimbardo’s research?

A

Controlled participant observation

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9
Q

How were the volunteers allocated to their role of prisoner or guard?

A

Randomly

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10
Q

Describe what happened to those allocated to the role of a prisoner.

A
  • Arrested at their homes
  • taken to the prison, searched, deloused and dressed in smock uniforms.
  • given a number rather than name, creating the role of a prisoner
  • placed in cells
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11
Q

Describe what happened to those allocated to the role of a guard?

A
  • Given uniforms, a ‘night stick’ and mirrored glasses.
  • Instructed to keep the prisoners under control but use no physical violence, creating the role of the guard.
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12
Q

What did the uniforms create for the individuals?

A

A loss of personal identity (de-individuation), encouraging ppts to conform to their social role.

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13
Q

Where was Zimbardo’s study conducted?

A

In the basement of a psychology department at Stanford university which was converted into a mock prison

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14
Q

What is a key term meaning ‘loss of personal identity’?

A

Deindividuation

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15
Q

How was the environment established as a prison?

A
  • Prisoners were placed in cells
  • Prisoners given a regular routine of shifts, mealtimes was established
  • Visiting times
  • Parole and disciplinary board
  • Prison chaplain
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16
Q

What role did Zimbardo take on in the experiment?

A

Superintendent

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17
Q

Why might Zimbardo taking on the role of the prison superintendent be a problem for the research?

A

This makes the research prone to demand characteristics as Zimbardo may have influenced how the ppts acted in the study, believing they had to conform because of what Zimbardo wanted them to do.

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18
Q

If Zimbardo’s research is prone to demand characteristics, what type of validity is this going to affect and how?

A

it will LOWER the internal validity - as Zimbardo will no longer truly be measured what he intended to (which is conformity to social roles).

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19
Q

What was found to happen to the prisoners in Zimbardo’s experiment?

A
  • Within a day, prisoners rebelled and ripped off their numbers
  • humiliated, sleep deprived by head counts being conducted during the night.
  • Identification shown - prisoners referred to each other by numbers rather than names.
  • became rapidly subdued, depressed, stress related signs.
  • 5 released early due to psychological disturbance.
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20
Q

What was found to happen to the guards in Zimbardo’s experiment?

A
  • The guards responded to the prisoners rebelling by locking them in their cells and confiscating their blankets.
  • As the experiment continued, punishments of the guards escalated.
  • guards conducted headcounts in the night
21
Q

What key term means that someone is starting to identify with their social role?

A

Identification

22
Q

Why were some prisoners released early?

A

Showed serious stress-related reactions

23
Q

How many prisoners were released early due to showing symptoms of psychological disturbance?

A

Five

24
Q

How long was the role play supposed to last for?

A

Two weeks

25
Q

How long did the role play actually last for?

A

Six days

26
Q

What conclusions were made from Zimbardo’s research?

A
  1. That guards, prisoners and researchers conformed to their role within the prison.
  2. That social roles have extraordinary power over individuals, making even the most well adjusted capable of extreme brutality towards others.
27
Q

AO3: Does Zimbardo’s research have high or low control over extraneous variables?

A

High

28
Q

AO3: Why does Zimbardo’s research have high control over extraneous variables?

A

Because the way in which the sample was selected was controlled for as researcher assessed the emotional stability of the participants prior to the experiment.

29
Q

AO3: Why is Zimbardo’s research having high control over extraneous variables a strength?

A

Controlling for extraneous variables means that Zimbardo can more accurately measure what he intended to measure, which was the power of social roles on conformity, increasing the internal validity.

30
Q

AO3: Zimbardo’s sample was all male. What bias does this mean the sample has?

A

Gender bias

31
Q

AO3: Why is Zimbardo’s research being male only a problem?

A

It makes it difficult to generalise the findings of the research that people conform to social roles to women. This is because the role of a guard is a violent one, and females stereotypically are more caring and concerned for others.

32
Q

AO3: Discussion - Why might Zimbardo argue that a male only sample was valid for his research?

A

Due to the background content of Zimbardo’s research and his interest in understand police brutality in the USA, at that time the majority of guards within the prison would have only been male.

33
Q

AO3: Does Zimbardo’s study having high control over extraneous variables increase the internal or external validity?

A

Internal

34
Q

AO3: Does Zimbardo’s study having gender bias decrease the internal or external validity?

A

External validity

35
Q

AO3: What word can we use to describe an all male sample?

A

Androcentric

36
Q

AO3: Did Zimbardo’s research have any ethical issues?

A

Yes

37
Q

**How did Zimbardo’s research break ethical guidelines - which did he break and how?

A
  • Lack of informed consent - prisoners’ did not consent to being arrested from their homes
  • No protection from harm - several prisoners left early due to the psychological disturbance caused
  • Lack of right to withdraw - had to go through parole process to leave prison
38
Q

AO3: Why was there a lack of informed consent in Zimbardo’s study?

A

Prisoner’s did not consent to being arrested

39
Q

AO3: Why were the prisoner’s not protected from harm?

A

Some showed signs of psychological disturbance

40
Q

AO3: What do ethical issues reduce for Zimbardo’s study?

A

Credibility

41
Q

AO3: What did Zimbardo do in order to overcome the ethical guidelines he had broken?

A

He carried out extensive debriefing sessions with the participants for several years afterwards and concluded that there were no long-lasting negative effects.

42
Q

AO3: Is Zimbardo’s research prone to demand characteristics?

A

Yes

43
Q

AO3: Why is Zimbardo’s research prone to demand characteristics?

A

Zimbardo was Superintendent and participants were paid

44
Q

AO3: Does Zimbardo’s study being prone to demand characteristics affect the internal or external validity?

A

Internal validity

45
Q

‘The parts that people play as members of various social groups’ is a definition of what key term?

A

Social roles

46
Q

Who took on the role of Superintendent in Zimbardo’s study?

A

Zimbardo

47
Q

What happened to prisoners who showed serious stress-related reactions?

A

They were released early

48
Q

In Zimbardo’s study, who conformed to their social roles?

A

Guards, prisoners and researcher

2023-2025 Year 12 A-Level Psychology (44 decks)

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