Zimbardo's study

• What was the aim of Zimbardo's study?

  To study identification to social roles
• What was the procedure of Zimbardo's study?

  • 25 mentally and physically fit p's were chosen to take part in the study
  • Local police volunteered to take 9 p's without warning from their houses
  • They were handcuffed away to the prison
  • Once at the prison, the people were stripped, searched and given prisoner numbers to memorise
  • Guards worse khaki trousers and shirts as well as black sunglasses while prisoners wore smockas
  • Guards were permitted to devise some of the rules
• What were the findings of the Stanford prison study?

  • The study needed to be stopped after 6 days
  • This was due to guards becoming creative in their evil
  • Guards started causing sleep deprivation
  • As a result, prisoners experienced anxiety and depression
• What is the conclusion of the study?

  Demonstrates how people can behave in uncharacteristic ways
• What is a positive evaluation of Zimbardo's study?

  • Lacks internal validity due to demand characteristics
  • One of the guards admitted to basing his role as a guard from the movie 'Cool Hand Luke'
  • Suggests that the p's acted how they thought Zimbardo wanted them to
  • But p's showed genuine signs of psychological distress
• What is an evaluation regarding population validity?

  • Biased sample
  • Zimbardo used an all male sample, which makes it androcentric biased
  • Zimbardo also only used Americans in his study, ethnocentric biased
  • Lacks population validity
• What is an evaluation regarding ecological validity?

  • Criticised for being a fake prison and p's not being real criminals
  • Does not generalise to real life as a result
  • However, there is real world evidence from the Abu Ghraib prison
  • Similar acts from guards were found like sleep deprivation in the prison and stripping prisoners
  • Study does not lack ecological validity