Zimbardo’s research

Question 1

What are social roles?

Answer 1

• Parts people play as members of various social groups.

Question 2

Zimbardo’s Aim

Answer 2

• Investigate how people would readily conform to new roles by observing how quickly people would adopt the role of guard or prisoner.
• To find out if the brutality reported amongst guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards or had more to do with the prison in environment.

Question 3

Zimbardo’s procedure

Answer 3

• Male volunteers paid $15 a day to take part in a two week simulation study of prison life.
• Volunteers randomly allocated the roles of prisoners or guards.
• Local police helped by ‘arresting’ 9 prisoners at their homes without warning.
• Prisoners we taken, blindfolded to the prison (basement of standford university).
• Prisoners stripped and sprayed with disinfectant, given smocks to wear and their prison number to memorise which they were referred to as.
• 3 guards on each shift.

Question 4

Zimbardo’s Findings

Answer 4

• Guards harassed and humiliated the prisoners and confirmed to perceived roles.
• Discontinued after 6 days.
• Prisoners rebelled after only 2 days. Guards quelled rebellion using fire extinguishers.
• Some prisoners became depressed and anxious.
• One prisoner had to be released after only 1 day.
• Two more prisoners released on 4th day.
• By day 6, prisoners submissive to guards.

Question 5

Zimbardo’s conclusion

Answer 5

• Stereotyped roles - people will readily conform to social roles they are expected to play, especially if roles are strongly stereotyped.
• Deinidividuation - Loss of personal identity. Prisoners stripped of their individuality(name, clothes, appearance, beliefs etc.
• Situational factors - prison environment created guards brutal behaviour.

Question 6

Evaluation of Zimbardo’s Study - Lack of realism

Answer 6

• Role play, critics argue that participants behaved to support stereotypes. One of the guards based his behaviour off a brutal character from ‘Cool Hand Luke’.
• Weakness - Stereotypes could explain why prisoners rioted, thought it was what real prisoners do. They were acting.

Question 7

Evaluation of Zimbardo’s Study - Control

Answer 7

• Some control over variables.
• Carefully controlled selection of participants. Pre tested participants to gain emotionally stable individuals. Then assigned roles of either guard or prisoner to minimise individual differences.
• Strength - increases internal validity. More confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of roles on behaviour.

Question 8

Evaluation of Zimbardo’s Research - Ethical Issues

Answer 8

• Lack of full informed consent - participants did not know that they would be arrested at home. Zimbardo thought that withholding this type of procedural detail was justifiable given the nature of the study.
• lack of protection from harm - humiliation and distress experienced by those who acted as prisoners could have been long lasting. Those acting as guards had to face the fact that they had been willing to mistreat their prisoners and they prisoners may have suffered psychological harm.
• Weakness - undermine credibility.

Question 9

Evaluation of Zimbardo’s Reasearch - Ethical considerations

Answer 9

• Zimbardo debriefed his participants
• Extensive group and individual sessions were held over sever weeks, then months and at yearly intervals. Zimbardo concluded no long lasting effects.
• Strength - ensures psychological harm is minimised. Zimbardo strongly argues that the benefits gained about our understanding of human behaviour and how we can improve society out balance the distress caused by study.