Zimbardo: Conformity to social roles

• Aim of investigation

  to investigate conformity to social roles
• Context


  • 1970's america
  • a time where prison riots took place due to the many reports of brutal and cruel bahaviour from prison guards directed towards prisoners
  • Zimbardo wanted to know why prison guards behaved brutally towards prisoners
• Variables in experiment

  • participant observation ( not a true experiment)
  • IV = social roles ( guard or prisoner)
  • DV = participant behaviour
• Procedure 


  • 21 students who tested as "emotionally stable" were randomly allocated to the roles of either guard or prisoner
  • The 'prisoners' were 'arrested'in the early hours of the morning at their homes and taken off to the 'prison'. Basement of SU
  • social roles were reinforced through uniforms and instructions about behaviour ( the use of ID numbers was a way to make prisoners feel anonymous, each prisoner was only called by their ID number, minimizing persons individuality)
  • Guards wore kackhi uniform and mirrored shades. Prisoners wore a loose smock to wear and a cap to cover their hair.
• Findings of Guards 


  • took up their roles with enthusiasm
  • Within hours of beginning the experiment, some guards began to harass prisoners and treat them harshly
  • used demeaning and degrading language with prisoners;harrased and intimidated them.
  • raucously awakened all prisoners in the middle of night
  • The guards were given authority over the prisoners, leading to abusive behavior towards them.highlighted the prisoners powerlessness towards them.
  • showed that individuals are more likely to act according to their perceived role rather than their personal values or beliefs.
• Findings of prisoners 


  • quickly became docile and conformed to the rules set by the guards
  • rebellion put down, prisoners became quickly depressed. One psioner was released because he showed signs of disturbance.two more were released on the fourth day
  • one prisoner went on a hunger strike. guards tried to forcefeed him and then punished him by putting him in 'the hole' a tiny dark closet
  • some of them became informants, 'snitching' to the guards about other prisoners
  • Begged to be paroled-completely immersed in the environemnt. (language used )
• Conclusions 


  • social roles appear to have a strong influence on individuals behaviour. the guards became brutal and the prisoners became submissive.
  • The experiment highlighted the power dynamics between those with authority and those without, showing how easy it is for individuals to become oppressive or submissive based on their position within a group.
  • The experiment had to be stopped early due to the psychological distress experienced by both guards and prisoners. Zimbardo ended it after 6 days instead of the intended 14.
• Strengths


  • A good degree of control was exerted over the procedure:
  • Selection of participants; Emotionally stable participants were chosen and randomly allocated the roles of guards and prisoners.
  • This ruled out individual personality differences as an explantion for the findings.
  • This increased the internal validity of the study, able to draw conclusions.
• Limitation 1

  • Lack of realism: did not have the realism of a true prison.
  • ALi Banuazizi and Siamak Movahedi ( 1975) argued that participants were merely play-acting rather than genuinly conforming to a role. Participants performances were based on their steriotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave.
  • For example; one guard said he based his role on a brutal character from the film 'Cool Hand Luke'. Prisoners rioted because they thoughts thats what real prisoners do.
  • suggest that findings tell us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisoners.
• Counterpoint to limitation 1


  • Mark McDermott (2019) argues that participants did behave as if the prison was real to them. For example 90% of prisoners convos were about the prison life. Prison 416 later explained how he believed the prison was a real one but run by psychologists rather than the government.
  • Suggest that SPE did replicate the social roles of prisoners and guards in a real prison , giving the study a high degree of internal validity.
• Limitation 2

  • Zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social role to influence behaviour.
  • example; only 1/3 of the guards actually behaved in a brutal manner. the rest actively tried to help and support the prisoners.
  • This means that most guards were able to resist situational pressures to conform to the brutal role.
  • Zimbardo playing a ‘dual-role’. Zimbardo’s own behaviour affected the way in which events unfolded, thus the validity of the findings could be questioned