Social influence-Conformity To Social Roles

Question 1

Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney et al. 1973)

Procedure:

What was set up?

Answer 1

A mock prison in he basement of the psychology department at Stanford University in California

Question 2

How did they select participants?

How many were chosen?

Answer 2

Male student volunteers were psychologically and physically screened.

24 of the most stable

Question 3

What were these 24 assigned to do?

Answer 3

Randomly assigned to either play the role of “Prisoner” ⛓ or “Guard” 👮🏼

Question 4

How were the prisoner arrested to make it seem real?

Answer 4

Unexpectedly arrested at their home 🏠

Question 5

What happened upon entry to the prison?

Answer 5

Put through a deluding procedure 🕷, given a prison uniform 👕👖 and an ID number 4️⃣5️⃣3️⃣

Question 6

How were the prisoners referred to by the guards?

Answer 6

By their ID Number 4️⃣5️⃣3️⃣

Question 7

What rights were the prisoners given?

Answer 7

3 meals 🍛, 3 supervised toilet trips a day 🚽 and 3 visits per week 👀

Question 8

What were guards given?

Answer 8

Uniform 👔, Clubs 🗡, Whistles 🎺 and reflective glasses 🕶 (prevent eye contacts)

Question 9

Who took the role of prison superintendent?

Answer 9

Zimbardo himself (he was also the lead researcher = lack objectivity)

Question 10

How long was the study planned to last?

Answer 10

2 weeks

Question 11

Findings:

How did the guards behave towards the prisoners in the first few days?

Answer 11

Became increasingly tyrannical and abusive

Question 12

What degrading activities did they make them carry out?

Answer 12

• woke prisoners at nights

- forced them to clean toilets 🚽with their bare hands

Question 13

How did guards show their enthusiasm?

Answer 13

Volunteers to do extra hours without pay

Question 14

What did the participants appear at times to do?

Answer 14

Appears to forget it was only a psychological study and they were merely acting

Question 15

What did one prisoner ask when they had had enough?

Answer 15

He asked for “parole” instead of asking to withdraw from the study

Question 16

How many prisoners were released early due to extreme reactions (crying, rage and acute anxiety)

Answer 16

5️⃣

Question 17

How early on in the experiment did these symptoms start?

Answer 17

Just after 2 days

Question 18

How long was it till the study was terminated?

Answer 18

After 6 days

Question 19

Who intervened?

Answer 19

Postgraduate Student Christina Maslach

Question 20

What does she remind Zimnbardo?

Answer 20

That it was a psychological study and it did not justify the abuse being faced by the ppts.

Question 21

What did the study demonstrate?

Behaviour of guards?

Behaviour of prisoners?

Answer 21

Both guards and prisoners conformed to social roles.

Guards became increasingly cruel and sadistic

Prisoners became increasingly passive

Question 22

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?

Answer 22

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

Question 23

How long did the study last for?

Answer 23

8 days

Question 24

Finding:

How was it was different to SPE?

Answer 24

Ppts did not conform automatically to their assigned roles as had happened in SPE

Question 25

Relationships of prisoners?

Answer 25

Prisoners indentified as a group and worked collectively to challenge the authority of the guards

Question 26

What did the guards fail to do?

Answer 26

They failed to identify with their roles which made them reluctant to impose their authority on the prisoners

Question 27

What happened to the balance of power?

Answer 27

There was a shift in power and the collapse of the prisoner-guard system.

Question 28

Evaluation:

Conformity to roles is not automatic

What did Zimbardo believe?

Answer 28

He believed that guards drift into sadistic behaviour was an automatic consequence of them embracing their role hence suppressed their ability to come to terms that what they were doing was wrong

Question 29

Variation in guards behaviour in the SPE

Answer 29

Varied from being fully sadistic to there being a few “good guards” who did favours for guards

Question 30

Haslam and Reicher (2012) found that…

Answer 30

Guards chose how to behave rather than blindly conforming to their social role

Question 31

Evaluation-
Problem of demand characteristic
(banuazzi and Mohvahedi 1975)
Argued that the behaviour of Zimbardo’s guards and prisoners were due to powerful demand characteristics

Who did B&M present their study to?

Answer 31

A large sample of students who had never heard of the study

Question 32

The vast majority of the students… ✔️✔️✔️

Answer 32

…correctly guessed the purpose and even the potential result of the study

Question 33

Evaluation:

Were these studies ethical?
Zimbardo’s study was considers ethical initially and the uni’s ethics committee approved it

One aspect of how it was ethical?

Answer 33

No deception

Question 34

Zimbardo acknowledges…

Answer 34

The study should’ve been stopped earlier due to the emotional distress.

Question 35

How did he attention to counteract such issues?

Answer 35

Carrying out debriefing sessions for several years afterwards

Question 36

What did he conclude?

Answer 36

There were no lasting negative effects

Question 37

How did Reicher and Haslam’s study differ in their approach to participants safety?

Answer 37

Took greater steps to minimise potential harm with an intention to crate a harsh and testing situation, but not harmful.