Conformity to social roles

• Social roles

  • The parts people play as members of social groups, these are accompanied by expectations we and others have of what is appropriate behaviour.
  • E.g a parent is expected to be caring, nurturing and look after the child. A student is expected to be obedient and respect authority.
• How does Zimbardo explain behaviour?

  Zimbardo argues that it is the situation (social role) that makes people act the way they do rather than their disposition.
• Disposition

  Refers to the internal characteristics of an individual.

  This may be personality traits, expectations or a tendency to act in a specific way
• Aim of Zimbardo’s research

  • Zimbardo aims to find out whether prison guard behaved brutally because they have a sadisitic personalities (pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering or humiliation of others) or is it the social role that creates the behaviour.
• Procedure of Zimbardo’s research

  • Set up a mock prison in the basement of a psychology department at Stanford university.
  • Planned duration- 2 weeks
  • 24 US male student volunteers.
  • Chosen after a psychological assessment to assess their emotional stability
  • Randomly assigned role of prison guard or prisoner.
  • Prisoners were unexpectedly arrested at home.
  • Prisoners and guard encouraged to conform to social roles.
  • Prisoners given a loose smock to wear, cap to cover their hair, identified by number.
  • Guards had a wooden club, handcuff and mirror shades.
• Findings of Zimbardo’s research

  • Experiment was called off after only 6 days
  • Guards had become so brutal to the prisoners than 2 prisoners had some form of nervous breakdowns, one developed a nervous rash all over his body and one went on hunger strike.
  • While the guards were giving their orders, the prisoners became apathetic.
  • They did not standup to the guards and simply did as they were told even though it caused them distress.
• Conclusions from Zimbardo’s study

  • Zimbardo suggested that the environment was an important factor in the guard’s behaviour as none of the guard showed sadistic behaviours before.
  • Suggests that people will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are strongly stereotypes as those of prison guards.
  • Deindividuation: May also explain the behaviour of participants especially guards.
• Deindividuation

  • This is a state when you become so immersed in the norms of the group that you loose your sense of identity and personal responsibility.
  • The guards may have been so sadistic because they did not feel what happened was down to them personally- it was a group norm.
• Describe how Zimbardo investigated conformity to social roles (4 marks)

  • Set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford university.
  • Observational study- controlled, participant, overt
  • Emotionally stable volunteers were assigned to the roles of either prisoner or guard.
  • Prisoners ‘arrested‘, blindfolded, strip searched
  • Guards given a night stick, dark glasses, uniform and told to maintain order
  • Prisoners’ daily routine, regulated by guards working in shifts
  • Dehumanisation of prisoners e.g numbered smocks
  • Study was planned to run for 2 weeks but stoped early.
• High level of control

  • This is evident through the selection of participants. Student volunteers were psychologically and physically screened and the most stable of these were randomly assigned to play the prisoner or guard.
  • Enabled Zimbardo to rule out individual personality and psychological differences, and it was only by chance that they were assigned the roles. This allowed Zimbardo to investigate whether the behaviour was due to the pressure of the situation.
  • Suggests having control over such variables increases internal validity
• Lack of realism in Zimbardo’s study

  • It did not have the realism of a prison
  • Banuazizi and Movahedi argued the participants were merely play acting rather than genuinely conforming to the role.
  • It points out Zimbardo’s experiment had demand characteristics. This is because the participants entered the experiment carrying strong social stereotypes of how guards and prisoners should act and relate to one another in a real prison. Participants acted on the basis of expectations.
  • This suggests that the findings of SPE tell us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons.
• Zimbardo exaggerates the power of roles to influence behaviour

  • For example, only one-third of guards actually behaved in a brutal manner, another third tried to apply the rules fairly. The rest tried to help the prisoners.
  • This shows most guards were able to resist the situational pressures to conform to a brutal role.
  • This suggests that Zimbardo overstated his view that SPE participants were conforming to social roles and minimised the influence of dispositional factors e.g personality.
• Ethical issue— Zimbardo’s study

  • Occurred due to Zimbardo’s dual roles in the study
  • For example, on one occasion a student who wanted to leave the study spoke to Zimbardo in his role as superintendent.
  • Zimbardo responded to him as superintendent who was worried about the running of the prison than as a researcher with responsibilities towards his participants. Showing Zimbardo was also conforming to his own social roles, sp he was not able to fulfil his main ethical responsibility.
  • Zimbardo did not prioritise his duties as a researcher to his participants and had violated ethical conduct.
• Real life application of Zimbardo’s research

  • Zimbardo argues the same conformity to social roles that was evident in the SPE was also present in Abu Ghraib, a military prison in Iraq.
  • Zimbardo‘s experiment explains conformity to social roles in a real-life context. Similar to Zimbardo’s findings, the guards at Abu Ghraib were similarly affected by an evil situation which led them to behave in ways they would normally reject.
  • Therefore suggests Zimbardo’s experiment and findings can be applied to real life situations which gives it external validity/