Social Influence L5 Flashcards
Social roles definition
The ‘parts’ people play as members of various social groups which are accompanied by expectations we have of appropriate behaviour (e.g: a parent being caring, a child being obedient, etc.)
What year did Zimbardo carry out the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE)?
1973
What was the aim of Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment?
To see whether people will conform to new social roles by investigating how readily people will conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life
What was the method of Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment?
- He converted the basement of Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison
- He advertised asking for volunteers to participate in his study
- More than 70 applicants answered the advert and were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse
- 24 male college students were paid $15 per day to take part in the experiment
- Participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard to ensure there was no bias involved
- The guards worked in groups of 3 (replaced after an 8 hour shift) and there were 3 prisoners in each room
- Prisoners were arrested in their own homes without warning and taken to the local police station where they were fingerprinted, photographed, and ‘booked’
- The basement which was set out as a prison had barred doors and windows, bare walls, and small cells
- The deindividuation process began where the prisoners were stripped naked, deloused, and were given prison clothes and bedding
- They were issued a uniform (with no underclothes) and were only referred to by their ID number, which made them feel anonymous
- All guards had identical uniforms of khaki and they wore special sunglasses so that eye contact with prisoners was made impossible
- Guards were instructed to do what they thought was necessary to maintain law and order and to command the respect of the prisoners, but no physical violence was allowed
- Zimbardo observed the behaviour of the prisoners and guards as both a researcher and a prison warden/superintendent
What were the results of Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment?
- Both the prisoners and the guards quickly identified their social roles
- The prisoners rebelled within days, causing the guards to become increasingly abusive towards them
- The guards dehumanised the prisoners by waking them during the night & forcing them to clean the toilets with their bare hands
- 5 of the prisoners were released from the experiment early due to their adverse reactions to the physical and mental torment (e.g: crying & extreme anxiety), even though they were pronounced to be stable before the experiment
- The experiment was supposed to continue for 2 weeks, however it was terminated on day 6 when a postgraduate student (Christina Maslach) convinced Zimbardo that the conditions in his experiment were inhumane
What was the conclusion of Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment?
- People quickly conform to social roles, even when the role goes against their moral principles
- Situational factors were largely responsible for the behaviour found, as none of the participants had ever demonstrated these behaviours previously
What is a strength of Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE)?
Good level of control over variables
What are 2 weaknesses of Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE)?
- Lack of research support
- Ethical issues
Describe the evaluation of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment that it has a ‘good level of control over variables’
- When selecting his participants, Zimbardo and his team chose the most emotionally stable males
- Each participant was randomly assigned to either prisoner or guard, meaning that there was no experimenter bias
- Therefore if the guards behaved differently, then their behaviour was due to the pressures of the situation rather than their own individual personalities
- As the study had high control over lots of variables, it increases the internal validity of the study
Describe the evaluation of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment that it has a ‘lack of research support’
- Reicher and Haslam (2006) carried out the BBC Prison Study where the prisoners eventually took control
The researchers used the Social Identity Theory to explain this outcome - They argued that the guards had failed to develop a shared identity as a cohesive group, but the prisoners did
- They identified themselves as members of a social group that refused to accept the limits of their assigned role as prisoners
Describe the evaluation of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment that it has ‘ethical issues’
- A major ethical issue arose because of Zimbardo’s dual roles in the study as he was the researcher but also acted as the ‘superintendent’ of the prison
- A student who wanted to leave the study spoke to Zimbardo, however the conversation was conducted on the basis that student was a prisoner in a prison asking to be ‘released’
- Zimbardo responded to him as a superintendent worried about the running of his prison rather than a researcher with responsibility towards his participants
- Another ethical issue is deception or lack of informed consent of the ‘prisoners’ as they did not know they would be arrested in their own homes
- This could have caused psychological distress to the prisoners
- Although, debriefing sessions were held and all participants returned post experimental questionnaires
- Zimbardo argues that the benefits gained about our understanding of human behaviour should outbalance the distress caused by the study
