Conformity to Social Roles

• Definition of conformity to social roles:

  • the part people play as members of a social group. Within each social role you adopt, your behaviour changes to fit the expectations both you and others have of that role
  • some examples of social roles could be being a parent, being a teacher, being a police officer, being a younger sibling
  • we want to know to what extent people conform to the expectations of social roles by adopting behaviours in line with those expectations
• Research on conformity to social roles - Zimbardo (1973):

  • Zimbardo conducted an extremely controversial study on conformity to social roles, called the Stanford Prison Experiment (it was a controlled participant observation)
  • the reason it was a participant observation is because Zimbardo observed the behaviour of the prisoners and guards (as a researcher), and also as a prison warden
• Zimbardo's prison experiment - aim:

  • to investigate whether people would conform to the social roles of a prison guard or prisoner, when placed in a mock prison environment
• Zimbardo's prison experiment (method):

  sample and roles;

  • sample consisted of 24 male university students
  • participants volunteered in response to a newspaper advert
  • the participants were selected on the basis of their physical and mental stability
  • participants were randomly assigned to one of the two social roles: prisoners or guards
  • Zimbardo took on the role of superintendent of the prison, as well as running the research
  • Zimbardo observed and recorded the behaviour of all the participants in a controlled observation
• Zimbardo's prison experiment (method):

  procedure;

  • the basement of Stanford University was turned into a mock prison
  • the prisoners were arrested by real local police and fingerprinted, stripped and given a numbered smock to wear
  • the guards were given uniforms, dark reflective sunglasses, handcuffs and a truncheon
  • they were instructed to 'keep order at all costs', and run the prison without using physical violence
  • the controlled observation was set to run for two weeks
  • they were paid $15 a day for taking part in the study
• Zimbardo's prison experiment (results):

  • both prisoners and guards quickly identified with their social roles
  • guards became increasingly aggressive. They dehumanised the prisoners, waking them during the night and forcing them to clean toilets with their bare hands
  • the prisoners initially rebelled but became increasingly submissive, identifying with their subordinate role
  • five of the prisoners were released from the experiment early, because of their adverse reactions to the physical and mental torment, for example, crying and extreme anxiety
  • although the experiment was set to run for two weeks, it was terminated after just six days as conditions in the study were inhumane
• Zimbardo's prison experiment (conclusion):

  • people quickly conform to social roles, even when the role goes against their moral principles
  • behaviour is influenced by a loss of identity
  • situational factors were largely responsible for the behaviour found, as none of the participants had ever demonstrated these behaviours previously
• Evaluation of Zimbardo's prison study:

  W - ethics

  W - investigator effects

  W - low ecological validity

  W - culture bias

  W - gender bias

  S - Abu Ghraib (Iraqi prison)

  W - BBC prison study
• Ethics (identify):

  • one weakness of Zimbardo's study is that it has been highly criticised for breaking ethical guidelines, in particular protection from harm
• Ethics (explain):

  • participants were put in a situation which caused a great deal of psychological and physical distress
  • guards became increasingly aggressive
  • five of the prisoners were released from the experiment early, because of their adverse reactions to the physical and mental torment, for example, crying and extreme anxiety
  • although the experiment was set to run for 2 weeks, it was terminated after just 6 days as conditions in the experiment were inhumane (prisoners and guards left the study in a different state to what they arrived in), therefore, the study caused harm
• Ethics (conclusion):

  • this is a weakness of research into conformity to social roles because it questions the credibility of Zimbardo's research as it did not protect participants, therefore breaking the BPS ethical guidelines
  • this could impact the integrity of the research, as there are more ethical ways to test how social roles affect conformity levels and the unethical procedures mean it is difficult for other psychologists to repeat the study using the same methods
• Investigator effects (identify):

  • a weakness of Zimbardo's study is that it is heavily influenced by investigator effects and demand characteristics
• Investigator effects (explain):

  • as Zimbardo used a participant observation with him in the role of superintendent, as well as them being paid $15 a day this means participants may have altered their behaviour to please him
  • it may have influenced the guards to act 'tough'. For example, the guards became increasingly aggressive. They dehumanised the prisoners, waking them during the night and forcing them to clean the toilet with their bare hands
  • this means the participants behaviour may be unnatural
• Investigator effects (conclusion):

  • this questions whether the findings reflect natural behaviour into conformity to social roles, without the presence of Zimbardo as a superintendent behaviours may have been different
• Low ecological validity (identify):

  • a weakness of Zimbardo's study is that it is unrealistic
• Low ecological validity (explain):

  • the study was set in a controlled environment (the basement of Stanford University was turned into a mock prison)
  • this is not reflective of a real life prison where there would be extraneous variables
• Low ecological validity (conclusion):

  • this questions the validity of research into conformity to social roles as it is not representative of a real life prison environment, therefore this doesn't add to our understanding of conformity to social roles in the real world
• Culture bias (identify):

  • a weakness of Zimbardo's study is that there is culture bias
• Culture bias (explain):

  • Zimbardo's study contains American participants
  • this means that the study is ethnocentric as it has a Western approach, meaning it lacks generalisability as other cultures may respond differently to conformity to social roles
• Culture bias (conclusion):

  • this questions the validity of research into conformity to social roles as it means that the study lacks generalisability and cannot be applied to the target population
• Gender bias (identify):

  • a weakness of Zimbardo' study is that there is gender bias
• Gender bias (explain):

  • there were only 24 male participants that had taken part in the study meaning that the research does not account for female attitudes towards conformity to social roles (androcentric)
• Gender bias (conclusion):

  • this questions the generalisability of the research as the findings can only be generalised to males
  • the study has beta-bias and it ignores differences between males and females
• Abu Ghraib (identify):

  • a strength of research into conformity to social roles is that it can explain events in real life
• Abu Ghraib (explain):

  • during the occupation of Iraq, American soldiers were put in charge of Abu Ghraib prison where rebels where held
  • they had been given little training on how to be a prison guard, had to work long shifts and were constantly under attacked
  • in 2004, news broke of a series of vile acts by American soldiers on their Iraqi prisoners. Showing that the soldiers had behaved in a similar way to the participants in Zimbardo's study
  • they had conformed to their role as prison guards and were aggressive and brutalised the prisoners
• Abu Ghraib (conclusion):

  • this adds to the validity of research into conformity to social roles because it adds ecological validity to the research as the events at Abu Ghraib support Zimbardo's original findings, as it shows that people do conform to their social role in real life situations
• BBC prison study (identify):

  • a weakness of research into conformity to social roles is that reliability of the findings have been found to be low
• BBC prison study (explain):

  • A replication of Zimbardo's study in the early 2000s was conducted by Haslam and Reicher
  • they replicated Zimbardo's research by randomly assigning 15 men to the role of prisoner or guard
  • in this replication, the participants did not conform to their social roles automatically
  • for example, the guards did not identify with their status and refused to impose their authority; the prisoners identified was a group to challenge the guard's authority, which resulted in a shift of power and a collapse of the prison system
  • these results clearly contradict the findings of Zimbardo and suggest that conformity to social roles may not be automatic, as Zimbardo originally implied
• BBC study (conclusion):

  • this questions the validity of research into conformity to social roles because the results contradict the findings of Zimbardo's study and suggest that conformity to social roles may not be as automatic as Zimbardo originally implied