Social roles study

• Society , community and then yourslef decide what in normal or right in a social role
• Bieng with someone you know well , or people you know well might reduce your change in behaviour
• The more we are aware of our own actions the less likely it is that we will act out of character
• We can be influenced by others to behave differently from how we would normally behave
• People who have been brought up in different cultures may find themselves behaving in ways they don't expect because their culture has taught them certain things about how to behave.
• In 1971, Zimbardo made an experiment in Stanford university .
• Zimbardo had build a mock prison in the undergrooung / basement of the university
• In his exepriment , the subject were 24 males that were perfectly sane , mentally and physically before coming in the experiment
• The experiment was suppose to last 2 weeks , but in the end , it only lasted 6 days , they had to stop it beforfe due to the impact that it started to have on the subject
• The 24 males were dispatched into either guards or prisonners , they were randomly given a role ( the experimentors flipped a coin)
• The prisonners were arrested by a real police officer and had to go through all the procidures of mug shots , fingerfrints, etc
• The prisonners were wearing smocks and caps, stripped uniform , white sort of tunic with their numbers on it , there head was shaved
• The prisonners were not refered to as their name but as their numbers
• The guards were wearing full real guards uniforms ( mirrored sunglasses , shirt , black large belt , cargo pants , boots, wooden batons , keys , truncheon)
• The guards had mirrored sunglasses ( reflectiv sunglasses) to not make eye-contact with the prisonners
• 3 of the guard became really quickly abusive . The guards were bullying the prisonners , they were doing food-holding , waking the prisonners up at 2:30 am to do a head count , and punished them ( by making them do push-ups) if the prisonners did'nt do as the guards said
• For the prisonners , they had to stay silent , faollow a routine that contained 16 rules. Visiting tile , parole and discipline were established .
• Over the first 5 days , the psychological abuse of the prisonners by the guards became incraesingly brutal . The quickly conformed to the role even if it was against their moral principles. Some of them quickly started to harass the prisonners ( in the first few hours) then the other guards joined them . It seemed like the guards enjoyed taunting the prisonners . When other guards joined , their behaviour worsened very quickly
• When other guards joined , they felt more comfortable to be abusive towards the prisoners because there was safety in numbers.
• One of the guards made a prisoner stand on his toes while holding him by the neck until he passed out. He also hit another prisoner with a stick so hard that he broke his arm.


  Day 4
• The guards forced the prisoners to play a game called "the wall" where they would have to run into a wall repeatedly until they fell down unconscious. They also played a game called "the lineup" which consisted of standing in front of a wall and having to hold your arms above your head for an hour without moving or talking. If someone moved or talked, everyone else had to start over again from scratch.


  Day 7
• The prisonners started to show signs of extreme stress and anxiety . A lot of prisonners had to endure mental breakdowns
• Post-experimental interviews revealed how suprised the participants were with their abnormal , changed behaviours
• It was considered that the change in the subjects behaviour was due to the environment ( the prison settings) factors rather than their mental settings as no participant had demonstrated such character traits before th investigation. Individuals readily conform to the social roles that were demanded by the situation, these roles only existed as long as the participants were in the prison settings