zimbardo Flashcards
what are social roles?
The parts people play when they are apart of a social group
what’s the difference between conforming to a majority and conforming to a social role
Majority - to avoid rejection or to be right
Conforming to a social role - to conform to the expectations people have of us
What did zimbardo believe that caused him to create the study?
Believed that it wasn’t dispositional factors that caused violence but situations factors
Zimbardos aim?
Do people behave in a negative way because of their personality, or is it the situation that makes the behave that way?
Zimbardos procedure
21 male us students
tested and found to be mentally/phsycially healthy
randomly appointed role of guard/prisoner
- P was arrested by local PD, stripped and thrown in prison, called by numbers rather than names
- Guards were given uniform, handcuffs, reflective shades
- guards instructed to run prison w/o violence
- set to run for 2 weeks
disadvantage of zimbardo sfe
P - ethical issues arose during study
E - zimbardo was both lead researcher and prison superintendent
E- student spoke to zimbardo, wanted to leave, zimbardo responded as superintendent, worried about the running of his prison, rather then the lead researcher
L - shows that that his dual roles conflicted with each other, also shows that the goals of research was put before the safety of pps
Zimbardos findings
- Initially, prisoners rebelled, guards then relatilated by harassing prisoners and punishing them
- had to be stopped on day 6 instead of intended 14 days , because of many of the prisoners exeperiencing psychological issues
Disadvtange of zimbardo
P - sample not representative , using volunteer sampling means that a certain type of person can apply
E - + use of only males, findings lack population validity , can’t be generalised to females
E - as zimbardo tried to generalise his findings for just males to everyone , could be criticised for being androcentric
L - meaning that any varying levels of conformity in females maybe seen as adverting from the “norm”
Disadvtange of zimbardo
P - lacking validity
E - argued that most pps were acting, some even said that performance was based of stereotypes and movies they’d seen “cool hands luke “
E - playa acting could explain why prisoners rioted at the start
L - suggests that zimbardos conclusions may be less robust and not reflect human behaviour
