zimbardo -conformity to social roles

• zimbardo aim

   His aim was to research how far people would conform to their social roles
• procedure

  • Zimbardo recruited 23 male university students for his experiment,
  • they had all been screened to ensure they were mentally stable.
  • He randomly assigned each of them to position of either a guard or a prisoner,
  • the prisoners were formally arrested from their homes put through a delousing procedure and given id numbers and a uniform,
  • the guards were given whistles and reflective sunglasses, to stop eye contact and told their job was to maintain order.
  • The experiment was meant to last 2 weeks but was cut short and shut down after only 6 days.
• Findings 

  • He found that guards became increasingly abusive and tyrannical towards the prisoners and the prisoners became submissive and accepting of their plight
  • he guards forced prisoner to carry out degrading activities such as cleaning toilets with their bare hands
  • .They conformed even when they were unaware they were being watched.
  • some guards were so enthusiastic that they offered to do extra hours without pay and at times seemed to forget that they were merely acting, therefore he found they conformed to their social roles to a huge extent.