Zimbardo Flashcards
What was the aim of zimbardos prison experiment
investigate how people conform to roles of authority within a fake prison environment.
What were the 2 ideas of guards being aggressive
– the guards had naturally agressive dominant personalities due to biology, this is the dispositional hypothesis
– the situation they found themsekves in led to them becoming agressive because of the role they were playing, this was the environmental/situational hypothesis
What was the sample
175 male undergraduates at Stanford university who were screened for any underlying behavioural issues and 24 were chosen for the study , 12 guards and 12 prisoners
What was the guards uniform and why
the guards wore guard uniform in order to give them a higher status and to dehumanise the prisoners. They were also made to wear self reflecting sunglasses which reduced eyecontact b/w them and prisoners in order to have a separating effect.
What was the prisoners uniform and why
the prisoners barely wore clothes and the clothes they did wear were very plain, in order to degrade, dehumaise and deindividualse them. They were intitially stripped and made to wear prisoner clothes which was another way to dehumanise them.
Why was the experiment realistic
because the participants quickly adopted their assigned roles of guards and prisoners, demonstrating how easily individuals can conform to authority and group dynamics.
Zimbardos said that 90% of the convos heard were about prison life
Why was the experiment not realistic
—The prisoners were not actual criminals and due to them passing the test initially they were also psychologicallly fine , they behaved as psychologically unstable which is very unethical as experiments must not harm pp
—there was a sample issue as the sample was bias, only consisted of young white males who were middle class, which was androcentric and therefore not generalisbale to other parts of the world.
Does the experiment have real life application
Yes because it can apply to the abu ghraib prison in iraq, zimbardo himself noted some similarities between the experiment guards and the real life guards, the guards at abu ghraib were immensly agressive and also were said to just be acting like that for the sake of their social status as they were above the prisoners and wanted to show that
Replication of the prison experiment
The experiment was later replicated o bbc by reicher and haslam 2006, however in this replication the prionsers took control of the prison and subjected themselves to harassment and disobedience towards the guards
