The Stanford Prison Experiment - Social Influence

Question 1

Whose study is it

Answer 1

Zimbardo

Question 2

What was the aim of the study

Answer 2

To investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that stimulated prison life

Question 3

Dispositional explanation

Answer 3

Personal

Question 4

Situational explanation

Answer 4

React to the environment (identification)

Question 5

What was the procedure

Answer 5

• lab experiment
• converted basement in Stanford Uni
• 75 applicants answered a newspaper article and went through personality tests
• 24ppts took part
• $15 per day to take part
• ppts randomly assigned to prisoner or guard
• “prisoners” fingerprinted, photographed and ‘booked’

Question 6

How many days did the experiment last

Answer 6

6 days
- Christina Maslach a PhD student stopped it

Question 7

What was the conclusion

Answer 7

• people will readily conform too the social roles they were expected to play, especially if their roles were s strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guard
• the “prisoner” environment was an important factor in creating the guards’ brutal behaviour (none of the guards showed sadistic tendencies before the study)
• therefore, finding support the situational explanation of behaviour rather than a dispositional one

Question 8

Deindividuation

Answer 8

A state when you become so immersed in the norms of the group that you lose your sense of identity and personal responsibility

Question 9

Learned helplessness

Answer 9

A condition in which a person has lost sense of powerlessness arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed

Question 10

People who carried out their own prison experiment

Answer 10

• Reicher and Haslam (2006) The BBC prison study

Question 11

What does the Social Identity Theory (SIT) propose

Answer 11

That our self identity is based on their membership in social groups

Question 12

What did Fromm (1973) accuse Zimbardo of

Answer 12

• exaggerating the power of the situation to influence behaviour and minimising the role of the personality
  -E.g. 1/3 of guards behaved in a brutal way, 1/3 were ‘fair’ in applying the rules, 1/3 were overly helpful

Question 13

What did Banuazizi and Monaved (1975) argue

Answer 13

The ppts were merely play acting rather than conforming to a role