Zimbardo's stanford prison experiment Flashcards
What was the aim of Zimbardos Stanford prison experiment?
To investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role playing exercise that stimulated prison life. He was interested in finding out wether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to sadistic personalities of the guards (dispositional) or more to do with the prison environment (situational).
Explain the procedure of Zimbardos Stanford Prison Experiment.
-converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison.
-advertised for students to play the roles of prisoners and guards for a fortnight.
-24 male college students were screen for psychological normality and paid $15 a day to take part in the experiment.
-The students were randomly assigned to play the role of either guard or prisoner.
-Some dropped out and so there were 10 prisoners and 11 guards. -There was also a solitary confinement cell for prisoners who misbehaved.
-Prisoners were given a lose smock to wear and a cap to cover their hair and they were identified by number.
-The guards had their own uniform reflecting the status of their role, with a wooden clip, handcuffs and mirror shades.
-Prisoners were treated like every other criminal, being arrested in their own homes, without warning and taken to the local police station. They were fingerprinted, photographed and booked.
-When the prisoners arrived at the prison, they were deloused, stripped naked and had all of their personal possessions removed and locked away.
What were the findings of Zimbardos Stanford Prison Experiment?
The guards took up their roles with enthusiasm and treated the prisoners harshly. Within two days, the prisoners rebelled. They told tales on each other to the guards and took the prison rules very seriously. Some even began siding with the guards. After the rebellion was put down, the prisoners became subdued, depressed and anxious. One prisoner was released because he showed psychological disturbance. Two more were released on the fourth day. One prisoner went on a hunger strike and they punished him by putting him in ‘the hole’ in a dark closet. Zimbardo aimed that the experiment would go on for two weeks but it was terminated after 6 days. A Stanford Ph.D was brought in to conduct interviews with the guards and she strongly objected when she saw the prisoners being abused by the guards.
What was the conclusion of Zimbardos Stanford Prison experiment?
People will readily conform to the roles that they are expected to play especially if the roles are strongly stereotyped e.g prison guards. The prison environment was an important factor in creating the guards brutal behaviour as none of the participants showed sadistic tendencies before the study. The study therefore supports the situational explanations.
Give a strength of Zimbardos Stanford prison experiment. (Control)
Zimbardo and his colleagues had control over key variables. E,g the selection of participants. Emotionally stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to the roles of guard and prisoner. This was one way in which the researchers ruled out individual personality. This degree of control over a variables increased the internal validity of the study, so we can be much more confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of roles on conformity.
Give a limitation of Zimbardos Stanford Prison experiment. (Lack of realism).
One limitation is that the experiment did not have the realism of a true prison. Researchers have argued that participants were merely ‘play-acting’ rather than genuinely conforming to a role. Participants performances were based on their stereotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave. For example, one of the gusrds claimed he had based his role on a character from a film. This would also explain why the prisoners rioted as they thought that it is what real prisoners do. This suggests that the findings of the experiment tell us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons.
Give a counter argument to the lack of realism evaluation of Zimbardos experiment.
Researchers also argue that the partipants did in fact behave as if the prison was real to them. For example, 90% of the prisoners conversations were about prison life. They discussed how it was impossible to leave until their sentences were over. This suggests that the experiment did replicate the social roles of prisoners and guards in a real prison which gives the study high internal validity.
Give a limitation of ZImbardos Stanford prison experiment. (Lack of population validity.)
The study may lack population validity as the sample compromised only US male students therefore its findings cannot be generalised to female prisons or those from other countries. For example, the USA is an individualist culture as oppose to collectivist cultures.
Give a limitation of ZImbardos Stanford prison experiment. (Ethical concerns)
The study has many ethical criticisms including a lack of fully informed consent by participants as even Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in the experiment. Also, the prisoners did not know that they were being arrested at home.
Give a limitation of ZImbardos Stanford prison experiment. (opposing research)
One limitation of the experiment is that there has been a recent study carried out by the BBC which contradicts the findings of Zimbardos experiment. The BBC replicated the research by assigning 15 men to the role of prisoner or guard. The partipants did not conform to their social roles e.g thr guards did not identify with their status and refused to impose authority. These results clearly contradict the findings of Zimbardo and suggest that conformity to social roles may not be automatic. This suggests that situational facts are not the only cause of conformity so Zimbardos study lacks validity.
