Conformity to social roles

• Key study - Conformity to social roles - The stanford prison experiment

  • Zimbardo ( 1973 )
  • Aim : to observe the interaction between two groups in the absence of an obvious authority figure
  • 24 male student volunteers randomly assigned to play either prisoner or guard
  • Prisoners were referred to by numbers & the guards wore uniforms & had the power to make rules
  • Findings:
  • Guards became tyrannical & abusive. They woke prisoners in the night & forced them to carry out degrading activities.
  • Prisoners became passive
  • The study ended after 6 days due to the abuse when it was supposed to last two weeks
• Conformity to social roles AO3:

  • ❌ The BBC prison study - neither guard nor prisoner conformed to social roles, prisoners worked collectively to challenge authority of the guards ✅ BBC prison study used a matched pairs design
  • ❌ Demand characteristics - Students who had never heard of the study guessed the purpose & predicted how the 'guards' & 'prisoners' would behave - SPE lacks internal validity
  • ❌ Conformity to roles is not automatic - in SPE there were some 'good guards' - the guards chose how to behave rather than automatically conforming to social roles
  • ✅ Relevance to Abu Ghraib ( a military prison were US soldiers tortured Iraq prisoners ) - behaviours from both guards were due to situational factors ( lack of training, boredom ) - SPE has external validity
• Conformity to social roles AO3:

  • ❌ BBC prison study
  • ❌ Demand characteristics
  • ❌ Conformity to roles is not automatic
  • ✅ Relevance to Abu Ghraib