stanford - evaluation Flashcards
1
Q
individual differences - personality
A
- Doesnt account for the role of personality
- Behaviour of guards varied dramatically
- ⅓ guards = extremely sadistic behaviour, but a few guards actually helped offering support, sympathy, offering cigarettes
- Situational factors arent the only factors personality also plays a role
2
Q
ethical issues
A
- Zimbardo was both lead R and prison leader
- A student who wanted to leave spoke to Zimbardo, who responded as a leader worrying about running the prison rather than a R
- This limited Zimbardo’s ability to protect his Ps from harm because his prison leader role conflicted with his lead R role
3
Q
Reicher and Haslam (2006) partially replicated the experiment
A
- Prisoners eventually took control.
- the guards did not identify with role and refused to impose authority
- prisoners identified as a group to challenge guards authority = shift in power
- social identity theory explains this - guards in the replication failed to develop shared social identity as a group
- So the brutality of the guards in the original SPE was due to a shared social identity as a group
4
Q
lacks realism = Banuazizi and Mohavedi (1975)
A
suggest Ps were play-acting rather than conforming to roles
- ppts performance = based on stereotypes = rioted because they thought that is what real prisoners did.
- became a brutal guard = film
- tells us little abot conformity to social roles
5
Q
The Rs had more control over variables
A
- Emotionally stable Ps were randomly assigned the roles of guard or prisoner
- so their behaviour was due to the pressures of the situation, not their personalities
- Increases the study’s internal validity
6
Q
Ppt behaved as if the prison was real
A
- 90% of conversations were about prison life
- One prisoner believed that prison was real but ran by psychologists and not government
- Replicate the social role of prisoners and guards in a real prison = high internal validity
