Social influence-Conformity To Social Roles Flashcards
Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney et al. 1973)
Procedure:
What was set up?
A mock prison in he basement of the psychology department at Stanford University in California
How did they select participants?
How many were chosen?
Male student volunteers were psychologically and physically screened.
24 of the most stable
What were these 24 assigned to do?
Randomly assigned to either play the role of “Prisoner” ⛓ or “Guard” 👮🏼
How were the prisoner arrested to make it seem real?
Unexpectedly arrested at their home 🏠
What happened upon entry to the prison?
Put through a deluding procedure 🕷, given a prison uniform 👕👖 and an ID number 4️⃣5️⃣3️⃣
How were the prisoners referred to by the guards?
By their ID Number 4️⃣5️⃣3️⃣
What rights were the prisoners given?
3 meals 🍛, 3 supervised toilet trips a day 🚽 and 3 visits per week 👀
What were guards given?
Uniform 👔, Clubs 🗡, Whistles 🎺 and reflective glasses 🕶 (prevent eye contacts)
Who took the role of prison superintendent?
Zimbardo himself (he was also the lead researcher = lack objectivity)
How long was the study planned to last?
2 weeks
Findings:
How did the guards behave towards the prisoners in the first few days?
Became increasingly tyrannical and abusive
What degrading activities did they make them carry out?
- woke prisoners at nights
- forced them to clean toilets 🚽with their bare hands
How did guards show their enthusiasm?
Volunteers to do extra hours without pay
What did the participants appear at times to do?
Appears to forget it was only a psychological study and they were merely acting
What did one prisoner ask when they had had enough?
He asked for “parole” instead of asking to withdraw from the study
How many prisoners were released early due to extreme reactions (crying, rage and acute anxiety)
5️⃣
How early on in the experiment did these symptoms start?
Just after 2 days
How long was it till the study was terminated?
After 6 days
Who intervened?
Postgraduate Student Christina Maslach
What does she remind Zimnbardo?
That it was a psychological study and it did not justify the abuse being faced by the ppts.
What did the study demonstrate?
Behaviour of guards?
Behaviour of prisoners?
Both guards and prisoners conformed to social roles.
Guards became increasingly cruel and sadistic
Prisoners became increasingly passive
BBC Prison Study (Reicher and Haslam 2006) (similar to SPE)
How many male participants used?
How were they grouped?
How were groups formed
Assignment of guards and prisoners?
15 male ppts.
5 groups of 3
Closely matched people on key personality variables
In each group one person was randomly chosen to be a guard and the other two to be prisoners
How long did the study last for?
8 days
Finding:
How was it was different to SPE?
Ppts did not conform automatically to their assigned roles as had happened in SPE
