AO3

• A weakness is that Zimbardo's research may have violated ethical guidelines

  -the ppts especially those selected as prisoners suffered emotional harm e.g deppression and were dehumanised by those selected as guards.

  -this goes against the BPS and raises questions as to whether the research should've been carried out
• Zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles to influence behaviour (Fromm, 1973).

  -For example, only one third of the guards actually behaved in a brutal manner. Another third tried to apply the rules fairly.

  -The rest actively tried to help and support the prisoners.

  -They sympathised, offered cigarettes and reinstated privileges (Zimbardo, 2007). Most guards were able to resist situational pressures to conform to a brutal role.
• This suggests that...

  -Zimbardo overstated his view that SPE ppts were conforming to social roles and minimised the influence of dispositional factors.
• A weakness is that some critics, like Banuazizi and Mohavedi (1975)

  -argue that participants were merely acting based on stereotypes rather than truly conforming to social roles.

  -For instance, one guard reportedly based his behaviour on a sadistic character from the film "Cool Hand Luke." -This suggests the behaviour may have been more about acting than genuine conformity, lowering the study’s ecological validity.
• The findings from Zimbardo's study have been used to explain real-life behaviour in settings like prisons and military environments.

  -For example, the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib involving verbal physical and sexual has been explained in terms of situational pressures and deindividuation, similar to those in the Stanford experiment.

  -This shows the study’s practical value in understanding and preventing institutional abuse.
• The participants were all male American college students, which is a narrow sample. (andro +ethnocentric)

  -This limits the generalisability of the findings to other populations, such as females or individuals from different cultural or age groups.

  -may be that due to differences in socialisation women may be less aggressive-Therefore, conclusions about the influence of social roles may not apply universally.