Social influence - conformity to social roles (Zimbardo)

Question 1

What is conformity to social roles?

Answer 1

When an individual adopts a particular behaviour and belief while in a particular social situation

Question 2

What was the aim?

Answer 2

To investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guards and prisoners in a prison simulation - Z wanted to know if reported brutality among guards in American prisons was due to sadistic personalities (dispositional factors) or the prison environment (situational factors)

Question 3

It was a controlled observation in the …

Answer 3

basement of Stanford University psychology building (converted to a mock prison)

Question 4

75 applicants answered the …

Answer 4

newspaper advert

Question 5

Diagnostic interviews and personality tests …

Answer 5

eliminated those with psychological, medical, crime or drug issues

Question 6

21 ppts. eventually took part …

Answer 6

and they were paid $15 a day

Question 7

They were randomly assigned …

Answer 7

the prisoner or guard role

Question 8

Prisoners were …

Answer 8

arrested at their own homes, taken to a local police station, fingerprinted and photographed

Question 9

At the mock prison, prisoners were …

Answer 9

deloused, stripped and put in a prison shift, each with a different identification number

Question 10

Guards wore …

Answer 10

identical military style uniforms with aviators and a baton to promote deindividuation

Question 11

Guards worked in 3s in shifts of 8 hours and …

Answer 11

were instructed to do anything they felt was necessary to maintain order

Question 12

Zimbardo observed the prisoners’ and guards’ …

Answer 12

behaviour but also acted as the prison warden, making it a ppt. observation

Question 13

Within 2 days …

Answer 13

prisoners’ and guards’ behaviour got out of hand - prisoners rebelled by not obeying rules and guards reacted with a fire extinguisher

Question 14

Guards acted brutally: …

Answer 14

they punished prisoners by withdrawing privileges, making them wake up to conduct head counts or put them in the ‘Hole’ (solitary confinement)

Question 15

After brutal treatment from the guards, prisoners became …

Answer 15

subdued, depressed and anxious

Question 16

After both prisoner #8612 and #819 were released due to psychological disturbances …

Answer 16

spare prisoner #416 went on hunger strike and was put in the ‘Hole’

Question 17

If ppts. tried to leave …

Answer 17

Zimbardo reminded them they had agreed to stay for 2 weeks - 3 prisoners did leave due to psychological disturbance

Question 18

The study truncated at 6 days when …

Answer 18

Christina Maslach (PhD student) told Zimbardo it had gone too far and had to stop

Question 19

What was the conclusion of the study?

Answer 19

People will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are as strongly stereotyped as prison guards. Z argued it was the power of the situation (brutal guard ppts. had never shown sadistic tendencies before) so it’s supported by the situational explanation

Question 20

What is a limitation of the study? - Questionable experimental realism

Answer 20

===> Banuazizi and Mohavedi (1975) argue ppts. were play acting based on stereotypes of how they should have acted according to demands of experimental situation. Showed study to students that hadn’t heard of the research and majority correctly guessed the aim. One guard admitted his behaviour was based on the film ‘Cool Hand Luke’. Z counters this by saying 90% of prisoners’ conversations were about prison life and prisoner #416 stated it was a real prison run by psychologists rather than the government. Internal validity of experiment is challenged

Question 21

What is a limitation of the study? - Ignored the role of dispositional factors

Answer 21

===> Fromm (1973) accused Z of exaggerating the power of the situation arguing that it dismissed the role of personality. Only 1/3 of guards acted in a brutal way: 1/3 were fair and 1/3 were overly helpful. Individual differences in the extent to which ppts. conformed to their roles weren’t considered in the results

Question 22

What is a strength of the study? - Good real-life application

Answer 22

===> Helps explain behaviour in prisons and war. Abu Ghraib prison (one of the most notorious in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s government). When the US army took over in 2003, they tortured, physically and sexually abused, and murdered prisoners. Z argued soldiers were victims of a ‘bad barrel’ situation and weren’t ‘bad apples’ themselves. Helped shape USA prison reform in 1970s

Question 23

What is a limitation of the study? - Results have never been replicated

Answer 23

===> Reicher and Haslam (2006) conducted partial replication: BBC prison study. Prisoners took control and subjected guards to harassment. Social identity theory (SIT) was used to explain this: our self-identity is based on membership within social groups. Guards failed to develop shared social identity but prisoners did, and this meant they refused to accept the limits of their role as prisoners. Challenges Zimbardo’s conclusion of SPE

Question 24

What is a limitation of the study? - Questionable ethics

Answer 24

===> Some ppts. experienced psychological harm and Zimbardo admitted the study should have stopped earlier. Guards made prisoners skip sleep and clean toilets with their bare hands. One prisoner asked to leave ‘on parole’ and Zimbardo refused. However, he did fully debrief ppts. and claimed there were no long-lasting damages to mental health. Also, the lack of ethics doesn’t diminish the validity of the findings.