Zimbado’s prison

• Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment involved 24 male students being randomly assigned roles as either guards or prisoners. They were then placed in a mock prison environment where the guards had complete control over the prisoners. Zimbardo observed the effects of power on both groups and concluded that situational factors played a large role in determining whether one conforms to their given role or not.
• Aim - to investigate the tendency of people to play stereotyped social roles to conform to social norms
• Procedure

  • used 24 emotionally stable american college students
  • set up a fake prison in the basement of the university- was realistic with locking cells etc
  • pps were randomly assigned either prisoner or guard
  • prisoners and guards both given uniforms
  • prisoners were suprise arrested
  • guards given fake weapons and sunglasses- they had full power but were told no violence
  • guards allowed to go home at the end of their shift but prisoners had to stay in the prison
• findings

  • pps confirmed strongly to their social roles
  • guards starting abusing the prisoners and being cruel
  • even though they were not ‘told‘ how to behave by zimbado, prisoners consistently stayed in their cells and guards consistently exerted their dominance
  • prisoners started showing signs of severe distress after just a few days due to the harsh conditions
• zimbado concluded that humans have a tendency to perform to society’s ’roles‘, although individual differences play a role as not all guards and prisoners conform
• ethical debates of zimbado:

  • his experiment is considered highly unethical
  • although they gave informed consent, prisoners were arrested at their house which they were not previously told about
  • psychological harm and long lasting trauma for some of the pps due to the severe conditions they faced
  • pps were regularly in unsafe conditions causing physical harm
• Zimbado’s experiment lacks generalisability due to the small participant size and gender bias. Aditionally, the study was completed in an individualistic culture so it lacks cultural diversity and can’t be applied to other cultures such as collectivist culture