Zimbardo

• What happens when a person is given a new social role?

  They may change their behaviors to match those associated with that role
• What is an example of conformity to social roles?

  Identification
• What was the purpose of Zimbardo's Prison Experiment?

  To find out what caused guard brutality in prisons
• How much were participants paid in Zimbardo's experiment?

  $15 a day
• How many male college students were shortlisted for the experiment?

  21
• What does de-individuation mean in the context of the experiment?

  Loss of personal identity
• What uniform did the guards wear in the experiment?

  Khaki uniform
• Why were the guards given mirrored sunglasses?

  To create a sense of anonymity and being part of a group
• What were the guards told regarding the use of physical force?

  They were not allowed to use physical force on the prisoners
• How were the prisoners arrested in the experiment?

  By real police officers in the middle of the night
• What did the prisoners wear during the experiment?

  A smock with an ID number and a heavy chain on their right ankle
• How did the guards demonstrate their conformity to their roles during the first night?

  By waking up the prisoners at 2:30 am for a count
• What degrading task were some prisoners made to do on the fourth day?

  Cleaning the toilet with their bare hands
• What did some prisoners experience that led them to leave the study early?

  Intense signs of psychological distress
• How did relatives of the prisoners conform to their roles during visiting day?

  They complained initially but soon accepted their new role
• Why did the study end on day six?

  A graduate student informed Zimbardo that the study was disgraceful
• limitation is that the findings are unreliable. Reicher and Haslam carried out a simulation study. They found that the participants did not all conform to social roles. Guards were uncomfortable with their power and did not demonstrate the authority expected. Prisoners rebelled from an early stage demonstrating a lack of conformity. This shows that this process is not automatic as Zimbardo thought. Instead, people only conform to their social roles if they identify with the group in which they have been placed. This is a limitation because it lowers the reliability of the findings.
• limitation - concerns ethics. Whilst the participants gave consent in that they knew they were signing up to role play they did not appreciate how this situation would make them feel. They also did not know that certain events would happen like the real police coming to arrest them at the start of the study. No protection from harm, he assumed the role of prison superintendent. Ended early, should have been terminated as signs of psychological distress were shown. limitation because Zimbardo had a duty of care to look after his participants and it would appear that he did not do this.
• strength-study was well controlled. Zimbardo selected participants from his sample that were 'stable' meaning he was able to control for individual differences regarding personality posing as an extraneous variable in this study. Zimbardo randomly assigned participants to their social roles. Zimbardo had not biasedly placed those with a more confident personality as the role of the guard to suit the hypothesis of this study. Strength-this level of control increases internal validity of the study, can be confident that findings influenced by the roles rather than individual differences.
• Strength-helpful in explaining cases of ordinary people committing atrocious acts. 2003 Abu Ghraib, the pictures show the soldiers threatening prisoners with dogs and degrading them by forcing them to strip naked and assume sexual positions. One photo shows a dead prisoner with an American solider smiling with her thumbs up. Zimbardo explains this behaviour in terms of the situation the soldiers had been placed in. He believed that they were conforming to the role they had been given. This is a strength because his findings have been useful in explaining such events within society.