Social Roles (Social Influence)

Question 1

Social Roles

Answer 1

The parts people play as members of various social groups

Question 2

Method (Zimbardo’s 1973 Stanford Prison)

Answer 2

24 male students act as either guards or prisoners in a mock prison after being randomly allocated their roles

The prisoner’s were ‘arrested’ as they went about their day

Prisoners were given uniform and numbers

Guards wore uniforms and mirrored glasses

Question 3

Results (Zimbardo’s 1973 Stanford Prison)

Answer 3

The guards tried to assert their authority and the prisoners resisted by sticking together

The experiment was abandoned early as some prisoners became very distressed.

Question 4

Conclusion (Zimbardo’s 1973 Stanford Prison)

Answer 4

Guards and prisoners adopted their social roles quickly

NSI led to participants conforming as they wanted to meet the standard of the group

Question 5

Evaluation positives (Zimbardo’s 1973 Stanford Prison)

Answer 5

A controlled observation so there was good control of variables

Question 6

3 Evaluation Negatives (Zimbardo’s 1973 Stanford prison experiment)

Answer 6

Artificial environment so the results cannot be generalised to real life scenarios

Unethical: participants found it very distressing

Zimbardo became personally involved, creating an observer bias

Question 7

Orlando’s Study

Mock Psychiatric Ward

Answer 7

29 staff members of the hospital volunteered to be ‘patients’ and were held in the ward. Patients started behaving like real patients conforming to the roles given to them. Felt dehumanised afterwards and lost their identity.