Zimbardos Stanford prison experiment

• aim- investigate how people would conform to social roles of guard and prisoner in a role play exercise that stimulated prison life.
• Procedure- converted a basement at stanford unipsychology building into a mock prison, advertised for students to play out these roles for a fortnight. Randomly allocated roles.
• Procedure- prisoners had uniform like rags and were referred to by a number. Guards had a uniform, whistle, handcuffs and mirrored glasses. Guards worked 8 hour shifts and no physical violence was permitted, zimbardo observed behaviour as researcher and acted as prison warden.
• Findings- both settled into their roles quickly, within hours guards started harassing prisoners, they behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner, prisoners were tormented. prisoners talked of prison issues a lot and told on each other to the guards, started taking prison rules very seriously and some began to side with guards. As prisoners became more submissive guards became more aggressive and assertive, demanding obedience, prisoners tried to please guards.
• • Evaluation- lacks ecological validity and demand characteristics could explain findings, most guards later claimed that they were simply just acting, behaviour may not be influenced by factors which affect real life behaviour, findings can’t be generalised to real life.
• • Evaluation- lacks population validity as sample were all US male students so can’t apply to females or those from other countries.
• • Evaluation- altered the way US prisons are run.
• • Evaluation- ethical issues as lacks fully informed consent by participants as even zimbardo didn’t know the outcome, prisoners didn’t consent to being arrested at home.
• • Evaluation- prisoners weren’t protected from psychological harm (humiliation and distress) one participant had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrolled bursts of screaming crying and anger.
• • Evaluation- zimbardo did a debrief for several years afterwards and concluded there were no lasting negative effects.
• • Evaluation- led to studies now having to gain ethical approval before conducted.