The Stanford Prison experiment

• Who carried out this experiment?

  Zimbardo (1971)
• What type of study was this?


  an observational study (controlled, participant, overt)
• What were the aims of the study?

  to investigate the conformity to social roles
• What was the procedure?

  • 24 male collage volunteers assessed as mentally stable
  • randomly assigned prisoner or guard
  • prisoners arrested, taken from houses and stripped and forced to wear numbered smocks and dehumanise them
  • Guards given quasi-military uniform, sunglasses and a night stick and given the only order to 'maintain order'
  • prisoners confined to make shift cells and denied right to withdraw.
• What were the results of this?

  • participants identified with role (Guards: tyranny and Prisoners: humiliated)
  • forced to stop after 6 days
  • concluded conformity to social roles is a rapid process, due to situational not dispositional circumstances.
• What are the ethical problems with this?

  • protection from harm: psychological distress in almost all the participants
  • participants were denied the right to withdraw
• Evidence to support Zimbardo

  Abu Ghraib (Iraq 2003)-

  • US army reservist soldiers (not guards) committed serious human right violations (torture, physical and sexual abuse)
  • this made Zimbardo's evidence applicable to real world experiences
• What was the BBC prison study?

  Reicher and Haslam (2006)

  • Mock prison system but in an old, disused prison
  • random allocation of 15 men to prisoner or guard.
  • participants did not conform as quickly as Zimbardo claimed
  • Shift in power, prisoners revolting.