social influence - conformity to social roles

Question 1

what are social roles

Answer 1

• parts people play as members of various social groups

Question 2

when did Zimbardo conduct his experiment

Answer 2

1973

Question 3

how did Zimbardo gather his participants

Answer 3

• 24 male students from 75 volunteers
• used psychological tests to select those who were most stable with no violent or antisocial tendencies
• randomly allocated the participants to the role of prisoner or guard by flipping a coin

Question 4

what were the roles and uniforms of the guards

Answer 4

• guards uniform
• truncheon
• shaded mirrored glasses
• de-individuation
  -had to keep the prisoners under control without using any violence

Question 5

what were the roles and uniforms of the prisoners

Answer 5

• nylon stocking caps - stimulate shaved heads
• dehumanisation
• chain around their ankle
• smock uniforms
• identified by a number
• could apply for parole

Question 6

what were the findings of the study

Answer 6

• prisoners rebelled and ripped of their numbers
• guards locked them in cells and took blankets
• violence and rebellions within 2 days
• punishments by the guards escalated
• prisoners humiliated, derived of sleep
• prisoners who went on hunger strike were force fed and locked in a dark cupboard
• prisoners became depressed and passive quickly - emotional disturbance
• intended to last 2 weeks but called off after 6 days

Question 7

what were the conclusions of Zimbardos study

Answer 7

• social roles have an extraordinary power over individuals causing most stable participants to behave with brutality
• situation causes brutality rather than personality characteristicst

Question 8

what conclusion did Zimbardo draw in 2009

Answer 8

certain very powerful social situations, settings and structures can shape and transform the behaviour of the person who enters them, supress individual differences and compromise deeply held values

Question 9

what is deindividuation

Answer 9

• people loose their sense of individual identity

Question 10

GRAVE evalution for Zimbardo

Answer 10

Generalisability
- only tested white male American participants
- America is an individualistic culture
- individual differences within the guards

Reliability
- Reicher and Haslam (2006) conducted a study of the BBC - guards didn’t identify with their roles and were overcome by prisoners

Application
- applied to Abu-Ghraib

Validity
- demand characteristics
- guards later claimed that they were acting
- playing a role and not influenced by the same factors in real life
- cannot be generalised to real life - low ecological validity

Ethics
- not fully informed (arrested at their homes)
- not protected from psychological or physical harm
- Zimbardo couldn’t have predicted this and did carry out interviews years after

Question 11

What was Abu Ghraib

Answer 11

• 2003-2004
• US army military police overtook a prison
• tortured prisoners, physically and sexually abused