Zimbardo's research - essay plan

Question 1

AO3 - high internal validity (strength)

Answer 1

• Zimbardo and his colleagues had control over key variables
• they carefully chose participants - ruled out individual personality differences as an explanation for findings
• participants were also randomly assigned to roles
• if guards and prisoners behaved very differently but were only in those roles by chance - must’ve been due to the role itself
• this degree of control shows how much more confident we can be to draw conclusions about the influence of social roles on conformity

Question 1

AO1 - the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE)

Answer 1

• Zimbardo set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University
• the 24 most emotionally stable volunteers were chosen
• students were randomly assigned to the role of a prisoner or a guard
  
  • guards wore a uniform and sunglasses - they were told to maintain control
  • prisoners were referred to be numbers - encouraged deindividuation
• guards became increasingly controlling and abusive, prisoners became submissive
• experiment was terminated early (day 6) - due to risk of prisoners’ psychological and physical health
• showed social roles appear to have strong influence on individuals’ behaviour

Question 2

AO3 - lack of realism (limitation)

Answer 2

• lacked the realism of a genuine prison
• Banuazizi and Movahedi argued participants were play-acting - not genuinely conforming to a role, but reacting to stereotypes
• one guard claimed he based his role on a brutal character from the film ‘Cool Hand Luke’
• explains why prisoner rioted - they believed it was what real prisoners did
• this suggests the findings of the SPE tell us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons
• HOWEVER McDermott argues participants behaved as if the prison was real to them
  
  • 90% of prison conversations were about prison life
  • ‘Prisoner 416’ later explained how he believed the prison was real but run by psychologists, not the government
  • this suggests the SPE did replicate social roles of prisoners and guards in a real prison - giving the study high internal validity

Question 3

AO3 - exaggeration of the power of roles (limitation)

Answer 3

• Zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles and their influence on behaviour
• only 1/3 of guards behaved in a brutal manner
• another third tried to apply rules fairly
• the rest actively tried to help and support prisoners - sympathised, offered cigarettes and reinstated privileges
• most guards were able to resist situational pressures to conform into a brutal one
• this suggests Zimbardo overstated his view that SPE participants conformed to social roles and minimised the influence of dispositional factors (e.g. personality)