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
Relationships of prisoners?
Prisoners indentified as a group and worked collectively to challenge the authority of the guards
What did the guards fail to do?
They failed to identify with their roles which made them reluctant to impose their authority on the prisoners
What happened to the balance of power?
There was a shift in power and the collapse of the prisoner-guard system.
Evaluation:
Conformity to roles is not automatic
What did Zimbardo believe?
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
Variation in guards behaviour in the SPE
Varied from being fully sadistic to there being a few “good guards” who did favours for guards
Haslam and Reicher (2012) found that…
Guards chose how to behave rather than blindly conforming to their social role
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?
A large sample of students who had never heard of the study
The vast majority of the students… ✔️✔️✔️
…correctly guessed the purpose and even the potential result of the study
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?
No deception
Zimbardo acknowledges…
The study should’ve been stopped earlier due to the emotional distress.
How did he attention to counteract such issues?
Carrying out debriefing sessions for several years afterwards
What did he conclude?
There were no lasting negative effects
How did Reicher and Haslam’s study differ in their approach to participants safety?
Took greater steps to minimise potential harm with an intention to crate a harsh and testing situation, but not harmful.
