Zimbardo and Milgram research Flashcards
Zimbardo SPE procedure
Zimbardo replicated a prison in the basement of the psychology department of Stanford University the participants used were 21 male students who volunteered to be participants these male students were randomly allocated to the role of either prison guard or prisoner.
Their conformity was encouraged through the use of uniform and behavioural instructions.
Do uniform for the prisoners was a net over their hair a loose mocked aware and they were given numbers rather than names in order to remove their personal identity and dehumanise them the guards were given wooden clubs mirrored glasses and handcuffs.
The instructions given to gods were that they were reminded that they had complete power over the prisoners prisoners were reminded that instead of being able to withdraw from the experiment they were to apply for parole this was to fully submerged the participants into the role of the study.
Zimbardo SPE findings
All participants seemed to readily conform to the rules even volunteers who came in with seemingly smaller roles such as prison chaplain actors as if they were actually in a prison rather than in a psychological experiment.
The guards took up their role is the most enthusiastically willingly treating The prisoners harshly one day to the prisoners rebelled they ripped their uniforms and swore and shouted at the guards the guards then retaliated to this behaviour with fire extinguishers after this a prisoner showed signs of serious psychological distress and had to be released from the study.After the rebellion have been put down the prisoners were disheartened and subdued. Regards enjoyed playing prisoners off of One another and consistently reminded them of the powerlessness. One of the prisoners decided to go on a hunger strike due to the unjust nature of their treatment as a punishment the guards put this prisoner in the tiny closet that they refer to as the whole. As time went on to other prisoners withdrew from the study and the guards began to become increasingly violent some appearing to enjoy their roles Zimbardo ended up concluding the study after six days rather than the previously intended 14.
Zimbardo SPE evaluation
+ The research was scientificallyCredible as there was a high internal validity as there was a high level of control over variables by the researchers for example the researchers eliminated Individual differences by testing the male participants beforehand to ensure that they were all around the same mental stability this means that any abnormal behaviours was a direct causation of the roles that they were allocated.
- However a limitation is that Mova Delhi argued participants performances were based on stereotypes for example one of the prisoners stated that they had faced their behaviour off of a film character who was a prisoner explaining the rebellion as they had mimicked the rebellion that they have seen in the film.
+ Despite this McDermott argues that the prisoners did behave as if they were actually in a prison 90% of their conversations were about prison life and they discussed how they couldn’t leave the Stanford prison experiment until the sentences were over this means that the internal validity was high.
Another limitation is that Zimbardo me a overstated the power of social roast influence behaviour is only one third of the gods actually behaved brutally the rest attempted to help the prisoners this means that most of them were actually able to resist situational pressures to conform to the rules there for his view was exaggerated.
Finally another limitation is that the sample was completely unreliable and deaf or difficult to generalise to the general population because the sample one only males males have a higher level of testosterone therefore are more likely to behave in a violent manner The participants were also only students from Stanford
-however Fromm argues that Zimbardo hyperfixated on the brutality of guards and in fact only one third of the guards displayed this emphasised behaviour meaning that the others were more sympathetic and tried to help the prisoners, therefore, the brutality may not be a direct consequence of the behaviour of the allocation of roles but a difference in personality.
Obedience milgram procedure
A newsletter was sent out with the advertising of a memory test and the promise of $4.50 in reward for volunteering 40 American volunteers from around the area of New Haven arrived at a live set up by Milgram they were introduced to a Confederate to was taking the role of Alana they had to engage in a fake draw to see who the line would be in the teacher would be result was fixed so that the volunteer would always be a teacher and the Confederate would always be liner experiment was also involved he was dressed in a grey lab coat all participants right from 20 to 50years old. Mr Wallace the learner was strapped to a chair and white with electrodes the teacher was given a tiny shop to start off work to experience the feeling for themselves each time alone would deliberately get a question wrong there received intensifying shock which was fake the experiment to commanded for prods to attempt to get the teacher to continue with the experiment such as the experiment requires you to continue the learner would Eventually begin to cry for help saying I have a heart problem I told you this and eventually would make a loud stand against the wall of the experiment and no more sound after the fact
Obedience milgram findings
Before the study 14 psychology students were asked to predict what would happen in the study all of them said that no more than 3% of participants would go past 300 V
In actual fact every participant delivered the shock up to the 300 V 12. 5% so five participants stopped at 300 votes were 65% continued to 450 V so full obedience
Qualitative data was also collected participants reportedly sweating lip biting et cetera three participants had stress induced seizures
All participants were debrief and a questionnaire was later sent out in which 84% of participants concluded that they were glad to have taken part in the study
From this data milligrams concluded that the Germans were not different and that Americans also Obeid instructions to cause harm in a very similar way to the Germans
Obedience milgram evaluation
The findings were replicated in a French documentary about reality TV participants believe they were on a Pilot episode for a new game show called the death show and this followed a similar procedure 80% delivered 460 votes to an apparently unconscious man with an audience all of them showed signs of anxiety
This demonstrates that Milgram’s findings could be replicated in other cultures and was not a one off
However the study does have low internal validity as all anna Holland believed that there was an influence of demand characteristics and that half of the participants were playacting and were very aware that the shops were not real however Milgram found that 70% of the participants were under the belief that the shocks for real
Despite this Sheridan and Kane found similar results for a puppy experiment all of the participants of aid however 54% of men believe that the shocks were not real 100% of women believed that the shocks were real this may demonstrate that the findings can be generalised to other genders however the women were being asked by men some intimidation factor to obey may have been implicated
A further limitation is a violation of the ethics of completing an experiment this is because the participants were deceived about the random allocation being fixed and the electrical shops being fake this was rectified by debriefing however Milgram has since been criticised for the psychological effects of deception
