Zimbardo Procedure

• All participants are the same gender, same age and intelligence, they are all students and volunteer sample through newspaper artciles
• Screened the participants for criminal history, pre-existing mental health issues
• Participants were paid which gave them an incentive to participate
• Ethical issues include stress and anxiety so no protection from harm and also no debrief beforehand
• Role of guards and prisoners were randomly allocated but they were told that they were allocated their jobs
• Taken to the police station first where prisoners were stripped naked and personal possessions were taken
• Guards wore sunglasses and identical clothes
• Deindividualisation is where individuals lose their identity and take on the identity of social group
• The guards negative beh. to the prisoners was the rebellion of prisoners 8612, food not properly cooked, uncomfortable and locked themselves in their cells
• Guards adapted to their newfound power by making the prisoners engage in physical punishments and needless unpleasant tasks like cleaning toilets with their hands
• Guards and prisoners both took on social roles
• Prisoners attempted to rebel, barricading the doors of their rooms etc
• Guards disrupted the prisoners sleep by waking them up to make them feel disoriented
• • weakness is that the research had poor ethics
  • lacks fully informed consent - didn't consent to being arrested from home, not protected from psychological harm
  • experiencing incidents of humiliation and distress can be damaging to mental health
• • weakness is that the research results may have been due to demand characteristics
  • 90% of prisoners private conversations were on the prison conditions and 10% were about outside the prison
  • this means that the results are not valid because the participants actions were not genuine
• • strength is that the research is useful
  • because harmful treatment of participants led to the formed recognition of ethical participant guidelines by the American psychology association
  • this means that real prisoners can use this knowledge in order to run their prison safely and effectively
• • strength is ecological validity is high
  • basement made to look like a prison, dressed like guards and prisoners arrested from home
  • the results are valid
• Zimbardo set up a mock prison in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford University
• They advertised for students willing to volunteer and selected those who were deemed 'emotionally stable' after extensive psychological testing
• The students were randomly assigned the roles and guards of prisoners
• To heighten the realism of the study, the 'prisoners' were arrested in their homes by the local police and were then delivered to the 'prison'
• They were blindfolded, strip-searched, deloused and issued a uniform and number
• The social roles of the prisoners and the guards were strictly divided
• The prisoners' daily routines were heavily regulated
• There were 16 rules they had to follow, which were enforced by the guards who worked in shifts, three at a time
• The prisoners' names were never used, only their numbers
• The guards, to underline their role, had their own uniform, complete with wooden clubs, handcuffs, keys and mirror shades
• They were told they had complete power over the prisoners, for instance even deciding when they could go to the toilet