Zimbardo’s Conformity to Social Roles

Question 1

What is a social role?

Answer 1

Social roles are the ‘parts’ people play as members of various social groups, e.g., teacher, student, passenger.
These r accompanied by expectations we and others have of what is appropriate behaviour in each role e.g. caring or being obedient

Question 2

What year did Zimbardo carry out the experiment?

Answer 2

1973

Question 3

What is Zimbardo’s experiment called?

Answer 3

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Question 4

What was the aim of the Stanford Prison Experiment?

Answer 4

To investigate the extent to which ppl would conform to roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing simulation of prison life.

Question 5

What was the procedure BEFORE Zimbardo’s study?

Answer 5

• Mock prison set up in basement of psych department at Stanford University USA
• Zimbardo recruited 24 male students from volunteer sample
• All volunteers psychologically + physically screened - select most stable w/ no violent or anti-social tendencies + were randomly allocated to either role of prisoner or guard.

Question 6

What was the procedure DURING Zimbardo’s study?

Answer 6

• Prisoner’s unexpectedly arrested at home + taken to the prison
• Study intended to run for 14 days
• Ppts not allowed to leave study when they wanted to

Question 7

What were Zimbardo’s findings?

Answer 7

• Within a day - prisoners rebelled + ripped off their numbers. Guards responded by confiscating their blankets + aggressive beh
• Dehumanisation - guards humiliated prisoners until they became submissive
• Deindividuation - prisoners referring to each other and themselves by their prison numbers instead of their names. + Police guards had dark sun glasses - loss of identity
• Prisoners became rapidly depressed. After 36 hours - 1 prisoner released bc he showed symptoms of psychological disturbances. 3 more released latter showing similar symptoms
• Study ended after 6 days.

Question 8

What did the prisoners and guards do within a day?

Answer 8

• Prisoners rebelled + ripped off their numbers
• Guards responded by confiscating their blankets + using aggressive beh

Question 9

Example of dehumanisation:

Answer 9

guards humiliated prisoners until they became submissive

Question 10

Meaning of dehumanisation:

Answer 10

Degrading people by diminishing their human and best qualities

Question 11

Examples of deindividuation:

Answer 11

prisoners referring to each other and themselves by their prison numbers instead of their names. + Police guards had dark sun glasses- loss of identity

Question 12

Meaning of deindividuation:

Answer 12

State in which individuals have lower self-awareness and a weaker sense of personal responsibilities for their actions. May result form relative anonymity of being part of a crowd.

Question 13

What happened after 36 hours of the study?

Answer 13

1 prisoner released bc he showed symptoms of psychological disturbances.

Question 14

When did Zimbardo’s study have to end?

Answer 14

Study ended after 6 days.

Question 15

What were Zimbardo’s conclusions?

Answer 15

• Conformity to social roles in situation does affect behaviour + behaviour is influenced by loss of identity
• The power of situation/ social roles influenced behaviour rather than dispositional factors

Question 16

What are dispositional factors?

Answer 16

Personality factors

Question 17

Strength of Zimbardo’s study - good control over variables.

Answer 17

Zimbardo controlled emotional stability - all ppts rated as emotionally stable before exp and randomly assigned to either prisoner or guard group.
SB: helps to rule out individual differences as determining factor of beh shown by guards or prisoners. Without random assignment - ppts would pick own role (prisoner or guard) - could be argued that ppts w more dominant characteristics would have chosen guard role, submissive - prisoner.
Thus w inclusion of this control - any differences in behaviour can be seen as due to social roles not individual differences.
Increases validity of study - increases our confidence in the cause + effect relationship between social roles and behaviour.

Question 18

One weakness of Zimbardo’s study is that it lacks population validity.

Answer 18

Zimbardo’s study used only male participants from the USA. This means that Zimbardo’s sample was gender-biased due to the lack of female participants. Many studies such as Cohn (1991) indicate that females have more empathy than males. Since the actions of the guards were often cruel and uncaring, females may have shown less conformity in this situation as they can relate more to the victim. In addition, the sample was culture-biased as it only used participants from an individualistic culture. Therefore, the findings cannot be applied to collectivists cultures who could show greater conformity to social roles due to their emphasis on the needs of the group, not the individual (Smith and Bond, 1998). This shows Zimbardo’s study lacks population validity, undermining the overall validity of the study.

Question 19

Weakness of Zimbardo’s SPE - presents several ethical issues.

Answer 19

Zimbardo’s dual role of being the researcher and the supervisor interfered with the psychological protection of some of the volunteers. For example, one prisoner was released after 36 hours as he had signs of psychological disturbances. Therefore, Zimbardo failed to ensure the protection of his participants because he was so engrossed in his role within the experiment. Thus, he didn’t uphold ethical guidelines resulting in significant psychological harm to some participants. Furthermore, the participants who were assigned to role of prisoners were not given the full right of withdrawal. At many points during the procedure they asked to be released and leave the experiment, but were forced to stay by the guards nor did Zimbardo step in to let them leave. These significant ethical violations undermine the credibility of Zimbardo’s study.

Question 20

Weakness of study is that Zimbardo may have exaggerated the influence of situation and assigned social roles on behaviour.

Answer 20

(Zimbardo, 2007) - only about a third of guards behaved in a brutal manner towards prisoners. The remaining guards either tried to help or support the prisoners or wanted to apply the rules of the prison fairly.
WB: This shows the situation/social roles may have had a less significant effect on behaviour than Zimbardo suggested because not all the guards were affected by the situational influences/social roles in the same way. Therefore, it seems that situational pressures to conform to social roles are moderated by personality factors - reducing the validity of Zimbardo’s conclusion that situational factors and conformity to social roles was the key factors in the behaviour of guards and prisoners.