Social Influence(Conformity to social roles)

Question 1

Stanford prison experiment - procedure

Answer 1

• Mock prison set up in the basement of psychology department Stanford University in California USA.
• Male student volunteers
• 24 most stable were randomly assigned either prisoner or guard.
• Were unexpectedly arrested at home and on entry to the prison and were brought to a delousing procedure, given a police uniform and ID number.
• Were only referred to as these numbers.
• Prisoners only allowed certain rights , including supervised toilet trips and 3 meals a day.
• Payed 15$ a day
• Participants allocated the role of guard were given Uniforms, clubs, whistles and reflective sunglasses.
• Study was planned for two weeks.

Question 2

Stanford prison experiment - findings

Answer 2

• First few days guards became increasingly hostile and abusive towards the prisoners.
• They forced them to carry out degrading activities and clean toilets in the middle of the night.
• Some volunteered to do extra hours of pay
• 5 Prisoners had to be released early due to extreme reactions (crying and rage), these symptoms began to appear after 2 days.
• Study was finally terminated on the 6th day following the intervention of Christina Maslach.
• The study demonstrated that both guards and prisoners conformed to social roles.
• Guards became increasingly sadistic and cruel and prisoners became passive and accepting of their position.

Question 3

Presence of demand characteristics - limitation

Answer 3

It was argued that the problems of the study involved demand characteristics than conformity to social roles. Therefore the vast majority guessed the idea of the conformity roles and performed the way of guard or prisoner just to please the researcher, therefore this lacks internal validity.

Question 4

Conformity to social roles is not automatic -

Answer 4

It was suggested by Zimbardo himself that guards drift into sadistic behaviours as an automatic consequence of them embracing their role. However it was pointed out not all people follow sadistic conformity roles and do not embrace the position fully. Some of them were even classed as good guards. They did not harass prisoners, therefore it is suggested Haslam and Reicher that instead of blindly conforming to social roles like Zimbardo said they have a choice of how to behave.

Question 5

Talk about ethics -

Answer 5

Zimbardo was aware of the effects of it may have had on the participants and completed debriefs for many years onwards and found no long-term effects on the individuals. Reicher and Haslam had reduced this and used the same basic set up as Zimbardo, but used greater steps to reduce the effects and minimise the harm to potential participants, there’s was seen as a harsh testing but not harmful.