evaluations - zimbardo

• strength - control part 1

  One strength of the SPE is that zimbardo and his colleagues had control over key variables.

  The most obvious example of this was the selection of participants. Emotionally-stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to the roles of guard and prisoner.
• strength - control part 2

  This was one way in which the researchers ruled out individual personality differences as an explanation of the findings. If guards and prisoners behaved very differently, but were in those roles only by chance, then their behaviour must have been due to the role itself.

  This degree of control over variables increased the internal validity of the study, so we can be much more confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of roles on conformity.
• lack of realism - counterpoint

  However, Mcdermott argues that the participants did behave as if the prison was real to them.

  90% or the prisoners' conversations were about prison life. Amongst themselves, they discussed how it was impossible to leave the SPE before their 'sentences' were over. 'Prisoner 416' later explained how he believed the prison was a real one, but run by psychologists rather than the government.

  This suggests that the SPE did replicate the social roles of prisoners and guards in a real prison, giving the study a high degree of internal validity.
• limitation - lack of realism part 1

  one limitation of the SPE is that is did not have the realism of a true prison.

  Banuazizi and Movahedi argued that the participants were merely play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role. Participants' preformances were based on their stereotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed t behave.
• limitation - lack of realism part 2

  for example, one of the guards claimed he had based his role on a brutal character from the film Cool Hand Luke. This would also explain why the prisoners rioted - they thought that was what real prisoners did.

  This suggests that the findings of the SPE tells us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons.
• limitation - exaggerates the power of roles part 1

  a limitation is that Zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles to influence behaviour.

  only one-third of the guards actually behaved in a brutal manner. Another third tried to apply the rules fairly. The rest actively tried to help and support the prisoners. They sympathised, offered cigarettes and reinstated privileges.
• limitation - exaggerates the power of roles part 2

  most guards were able to resist situational pressures to conform to a brutal role.

  this suggests that zimbardo overstaed his view that SPE participants were conforming to social roles and minimised the influence of dispositional factors.
• strength - explains behaviour in Abu Ghraib part 1

  a strength of the results of the SPE is that the cam be used to explain the serious human rights violations committed by the US army against the Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

  prisoners were tortured, physcially and sexually abused, routinely humiliated and some were murdered.
• strength - explains behaviour in Abu Ghraib part 2

  zimbardo noticed some remarkable similarities between the behaviour off the US soldiers and the prisoners, he later acted as an expert witness in the trial of some of the soldiers.

  This shows that the results of the experiment can be used to explain current events beyond the initial experiment, strengthen its ability to explain human behaviour at its worst.