Social Roles

Question 1

Define social roles

Answer 1

Part an individual play as members of a social group which meet the expectations of that situation

Question 2

Procedure

Answer 2

• prison recreated in Stanford university basement
• ppts where 21 male students volunteers who were paid to participate
• randomly assigned role of guard or prisoner
• zimbardo played the part of prison superintendent
• real as possible by making sure prisoner where arrested wit out warning, finger printed and stripped

Question 3

What did guards wear

Answer 3

Uniforms and mirrored sunglasses

Question 4

What did prisoners wear

Answer 4

Chains, smocks and referred to by only their number

Question 5

Findings

Answer 5

Guards behaviour conformed to their social role by:

• callous and sadistic
• dehumanising prisoners

Prisoner behaviour conform to their social role by:
- rebelled at first but became submissive over time

• conformed to expected social role seen i media and culture
• not all guards conformed

Question 6

Conclusion

Answer 6

• individuals conform readily to social roles demanded of the situation
• even when it overrides a person moral beliefs about their personal behaviour

Question 7

Limitations

Answer 7

• The study followed the guidelines of the Stanford University ethics committee that had approved it. There was very little deception or lack of informed consent. However, many of the participants experienced emotional distress and so the study was criticised for not protecting the participants from harm
• lacks ecological validity. Despite the effort Zimbardo went to in making the prison experience as realistic as possible, it was still not real. Therefore the participants were conforming to social roles which they knew weren’t real so there is some doubt as to whether this tells us anything about conformity to social roles by real guards in real prisons
• It has been suggested that the participants were not conforming to social roles of guard and prisoner, but were responding to demand characteristics of the research situation.

Question 8

Deindiviation theory

Answer 8

Ppl feel more anonymous when they loose there sense of individual identity and behave in a way they wouldn’t normally

Question 9

Strength

Answer 9

practical applications as the results have been used to explain real life prison violence. Zimbardo argues that the same conformity to social role effect that was evident in his study was also present in Abu Ghraib, a military prison in Iraq notorious for the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers in 2003 to 2004

Question 10

Counter evidence

Answer 10

• Reicher and Haslem
• bbs prison study
• found did not conform to soils roles instead prisoners worked together to challenge authority and established equal social relation
• guards didn’t conform and where reluctant to impose authority