conformity to social roles

• Conformity - The part people play as members of a social group, with each social role you adopt, your behaviour changes to fit the expectations both you and others have of that role
• Zimbardo‘s prison study

  Aim: to investigate if people would conform to the social roles of a prison guard or prisoner when placed in a mock prison environment
• Zimbardo‘s prison study

  Method:

  • sample of 24 male uni students
  • participants volunteered
  • participants were selected based on their physical and mental stability
  • participants were randomly assigned to either prisoner or guard
  • Zimbardo was the Superintendent
  • it was a controlled observation
• Zimbardo’s prison study

  Procedure:

  • the ‘prisoners’ were arrested by real local police and fingerprinted, stripped and given a numbered smock to wear
  • the guards were given uniforms, sunglasses, handcuffs and a truncheon
  • they were instructed to “keep order at all costs” and run the prison without using violence
  • the experiment was set to run for two weeks
• Zimbardo prison study

  Results:

  • guards became increasingly aggressive
  • they dehumanised the prisoners, waking them at night and forced them to clean toilets with their bare hands
  • the prisoners initially rebelled but became increasingly submissive
  • five prisoners were released from the experiment early due to their adverse reactions to the physical and mental torment
  • the experiment was terminated after 6 days as conditions were inhumane
• Zimbardo prison study

  Conclusions:

  • people quickly conform to social roles, even if it goes against their moral principles
  • behaviour is influenced by a loss of identity
  • situational factors were largely responsible, as none of the participants demonstrated these behaviours previously
• Evaluation of conformity to social roles

  ☹️ ethics

  ☹️ investigator effects

  🙂 Abu Ghraib

  ☹️ BBC prison study