Zimbardo’s study

• Social roles

  The parts people play as members of various social groups.
• Deindividuation

  Happens when there's a loss of indivduation, no longer having personal responsibility for their actions
• Zimbardo's aim


  He wanted to find out if prison guards behaved brutally due to sadistic personalities or if it's the situation that causes the behaviour.
• Zimbardo procedure

  Sample- 21 male university students who volunteered in response to newspaper advert

  - participants were selected 75 volunteers on the basis of their physical and mental stability. We're paid $15 a day to take part.

  -randomly assigned to one of two social roles, prisoner or guard.

  -took place in basement of Stanford university which was a mock prison.
• Zimbardo procedure 2

  Prisoners were arrested by real local police and fingerprinted, stripped and given a numbered smocked to wear with chains around ankles and number to refer to them as.

  Guards given a uniform, dark reflective sunglasses, handcuffs and truncheon.

  Guards were instructed to run prison without physical violence for 2 weeks.
• Zimbardo findings

  Both prisoners and guards quickly identified with their social roles.

  Guards grew increasingly abusive towards the prisoners and dehumanised them, waking them during the night and forcing them to clean toilets with bare hands.

  Prisoners became submissive. One left after 36 hours as showed symptoms of psychological disturbance.

  Experiment was terminated after 6 days, even though was set for 2 weeks.
• Zimbardo conclusion

  People quickly conform to social roles, even when the role goes against their moral principles. Situational factors were also largely responsible for the behaviour found, as none of participants had ever demonstrated these behaviours previously.
• Zimbardo evaluation- high control

  POINT- One strength is he had some control over variables

  EVIDENCE- Zimbardo had control over the selection of participants, as he only assigned roles to those who were emotionally stable. He did this randomly too. This rules out individual personality differences as an explanation of the findings.

  EXPLAIN- So, the internal validity of the study increases and we can be more confident in the conclusions about the influence of social roles on conformity rather than individual differences.
• Zimbardo evaluation- demand characteristics

  POINT- One weakness is that there may be other explanations into the behaviour than conformity to roles.

  EVIDENCE- Some may say the behaviour is a result of demand characteristics. When a large sample of students were presented with details of the procedure of the study, they correctly guessed the aim and also the results of the guards behaviour.

  EXPLAIN- This suggests the behaviour of the guards and prisoners wasnt due to their response in the prison experiment but rather the demand characteristics in the experimental situation.
• Zimbardo evaluation- contradicting evidence

  POINT- One weakness is there's contradicting evidence for the SPE.

  EVIDENCE- A replication of the SPE for the BBC challenged the conclusions as it demonstrated participants dont always conform to roles assigned to them. Participants resisted behaviours that conflicted with their identities.

  EXPLAIN- This and the fact only 1/3 of guards in original experiment demonstrated sadistic behaviour shows social roles have limited influence. Individuals have moral choice in their actions.
• Zimbardo evaluation- application

  POINT- One strength is the experiment can help explain incidents of cruelty and abuse in institutional settings.

  EVIDENCE- For example, guards in Abu Ghraib, similar to those in SPE, performed highly abusive behaviours.

  EXPLAIN- Through recognising the impact of situational factors on human behaviour, it leads to practical application of increased training and oversight in military/ law enforcement settings to prevent abuse.