zimbardo Flashcards
participants
24 male undergraduate students
aim
To investigate how readily people would conform to the social roles in a simulated environment, and specifically, to investigate why ‘good people do bad things’.
procedure
The basement of the Stanford University psychology building was
converted into a simulated prison.
American student volunteers were paid to take part in the study.
They were randomly issued one of two roles; guard or prisoner.
Both prisoners and guards had to wear uniforms.
Prisoners were only referred to by their assigned number.
Guards were given props like handcuffs and sunglasses (to make
eye contact with prisoners impossible and to reinforce the boundaries
between the two social roles within the established social hierarchy).
No one was allowed to leave the simulated prison.
Guards worked eight hour shifts, while the others remained on call.
Prisoners were only allowed in the hallway which acted as their yard,
and to the toilet. The guards were allowed to control such behaviour,
in order to emphasise their complete power over the prisoners!
No physical violence was permitted, in line with ethical guidelines
and to prevent complete overruling.
The behaviour of the participants was observed
findings
situational Identification occurred very fast, as both the prisoners and guards
adopted their new roles and played their part in a short amount of
time, despite the apparent disparity between the two social roles.
Guards began to harass and torment prisoners in harsh and
aggressive ways – they later reported to have enjoyed doing so and
relished in their new-found power and control.
Prisoners would only talk about prison issues (forgetting about their
previous real life), and snitch on other prisoners to the guards to
please them. This is significant evidence to suggest that the
prisoners believed that the prison was real, and were not acting
simply due to demand characteristics.
They would even defend the guards when other prisoners broke the
rules, reinforcing their social roles as prisoner and guard, despite it
not being real.
The guards became more demanding of obedience and
assertiveness towards the prisoners while the prisoners become
more submissive. This suggests that the respective social roles
became increasingly internalised.
strengths
Real life applications – This research changed the way US prisons
are run e.g. young prisoners are no longer kept with adult prisoners
to prevent the bad behaviour perpetuating. Beehive-style prisons,
where all cells are under constant surveillance from a central
monitoring unit, are also not used in modern times, due to such
setups increasing the effects of institutionalisation and over
exaggerating the differences in social roles between prisoners and
guards.
Debriefing – participants were fully and completely debriefed about
the aims and results of the study. This is particularly important when
considering that the BPS ethical guidelines of deception and
informed consent had been breached. Dealing with ethical issues in
this way simply makes the study more ethically acceptable, but does
not change the quality (in terms of validity and reliability) of the
findings.
The amount of ethical issues with the study led to the formal
recognition or ethical guidelines so that future studies were safer and
less harmful to participants due to legally bound rules. This
demonstrates the practical application of an increased understanding
of the mechanisms of conformity and the variables which affect this.
weaknesses
Lacks ecological validity - The study suffered from demand
characteristics. For example, the participants knew that they were
participating in a study and therefore may have changed their behaviour, either to please the experimenter (a type of demand characteristic) or in response to being observed (participant reactivity, which acts as a confounding variable). The participants also knew that the study was not real so they claimed that they simply acted according to the expectations associated with their role
rather genuinely adopting it. This was seen particularly with
qualitative data gathered from an interview with one guard, who said that he based his performance from the stereotypical guard role
portrayed in the film Cool Hand Luke, thus further reducing the
validity of the findings lacks population validity – The sample only consisted of American
male students and so the findings cannot be generalised to other
genders and cultures. For example, collectivist cultures, such as
China or Japan, may be more conformist to their prescribed social
roles because such cultures value the needs of the group over the
needs of the individual. This suggests that such findings may be
culture-bound!
Ethical issues:
Lack of fully informed consent due to the deception required to
(theoretically) avoid demand characteristics and participant reactivity.
However Zimbardo himself did not know what was going to happen,
so could not inform the participants, meaning that there is possible
justification for a breach of ethical guidelines.
Psychological harm – Participants were not protected from stress,
anxiety, emotional distress and embarrassment e.g. one prisoner had
to be released due to excess distress and uncontrollable screaming
and crying. One prisoner was released on the first day due to
showing signs of psychological disturbance, with a further two being
released on the next day. This study would be deemed unacceptable
according to modern ethical standards.
conclusion
there are strong situational influences on how people behave- the guards and prisoners both conformed to their social roles in the prison experiment as if they were in an actual prison rather than an experiment
