Social Conformity

• social roles

  • parts we play in different social groups, which gives expectations of how we and others should believe in a given role
  • conformity to soical roles involves identification, involving public and private acceptance of the behaviour and attitudes exhibited but only whilst those in particular situations
• Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment - procedure

  • 24 psychologically healthy male students were recruited from adverts and randomly assigned to guard or prisoner
  • arrested at home and given a uniform and ID number, given meals and supervised toilet trips
  • guards had uniforms, shades and clubs
  • Zimbardo played the rolse of the warden
• Zimbardo - what happened

  • guards quickly became abusive
  • role behaviour continued even when they didn't know they were being watched
  • some prisoners had extreme reactions (e.g. anxiety, hunger strike)
  • despite this, they were encouraged to stay and be an informant for Zimbardo
  • eventually, the study ended on day 6 (of 14)
• Evaluation

  • lacks major internal validity
  • can't be generalised - only done with males, very young, all emotionally stable
  • a very conformist and rebellious time - likes temporal validity
  • Zimbardo was too close and part of the experiment
  • mock prison was not a realistic setting (lacks mundane realism)
  • some guessed what the study was about so acted the way they thought they should (demand characteristics)
  • individual differences
  • willing to do it and volunteered
  • controlled participant observation
• more controlled version of the study

  • groups matched on personality variables and then one was randomly chosen to be a guard and the other two were prisoners
  • the study ran for 8 days
  • prisoners bonded together and intimidated the guards
  • the guards were very uncomfortable and didn't want to you authority
  • conducted in Britain (different time and culture)
  • a prisoner emerged in a leadership role (personal things people bring to the social roles)
  • groups aren't always bad and can sometimes be good
  • called the experiment to a halt 36 hours before it was due to end