Conformity to social roles

• What was Zimbardos (1973) study

  The Stanford prison experiment
• aim 


  to investigate the effect of social role on conformity
• procedure

  • 21 male student volunteers who were emotionally stable
  • they were randomly allocated the role of guard or prison
  • the social roles were encouraged by:

  1. uniform - prisoners were strip searched, given a uniform and a number - deindividuation
  2. instructions about behaviour - prisoners were told they couldn’t leave and would have to ask for parole. guards were told they had complete power over prisoners
• findings

  • the guards played their roles enthusiastically and treated prisoners harshly.
  • the prisoners rebelled within 2 days - they ripped their uniforms and swore at the guards. the guards retaliated with fire extinguishers and harassed prisoners
  • the guards behaviour threaten the prisoners psychological and physical health:
  • prisoners became anxious and depressed
  • 3 prisoners were released early due to psychological disturbance
  • one prisoner went on hunger strike - the guards put him in the hole to punish him
  • the study was stopped after 6 days instead of 14
• conclusion

  social roles are powerful influences on behaviour - most conformed strongly to their role. guards became brutal and prisoners became submissive.
• One strength of the stanford prison experiment is control over key variables

  emotionally stable participants were recruited and randomly allocated the roles of guard or prisoner. The guards and prisoners had those roles only by change. so their behaviour was due to the role itself and not their personalities. This control increased the study’s internal validity. So we can have more confidence in drawing conclusions about the effect of social roles on conformity
• one limitation is the SPE lacked the realism of a true prison

  Banuazizi and Mohavedi (1975) suggest participants were play acting. their performances reflected stereotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave. one guard based his role on a character from the film Cool Hand Luke. participants rioted because they though that’s what real prisoners did. this suggests the SPE tells us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons
• one limitation is the SPE lacked the realism of a true prison: counterpoint 


  participants behaved as if the prison was real e.g. 90% of conversations were about prison life. prisoner 416 believed the prison was run psychologists. this suggests the SPE replicated the roles of guard and prisoner just as in a real prison, increasing internal validity
• another limitation is that zimbardo exaggerated the power of roles

  the power of social roles to influence behaviour may have been exaggerated in the SPE (Fromm 1973). only 1/3 of the guards behaved brutally. another 1/3 applied the rules fairly. the rest supported the prisoners, offering them cigarettes and reinstating privileges. the suggests the SPE overstates the view that the guards were conforming to a brutal role and minimised dispositional influences e.g. personality