Zimbardo Conformity to Social Roles

• Zimbardo's prison study was carried out in

  1971 at Stanford university
• Social roles

  Behaviours expected of a person with certain positions/status
• Sample

  • 21 psychologically stable male volunteers, chosen from a number of participants, from an advert at Stanford University
• Procedure

  1. Randomly allocated roles of prisoner and prison guard

  2. Prisoners being arrested from home and stripped off their identity, only being identified by numbers in prison

  3. Guards were given khaki uniform, cuffs, sunglasses and batons, encouraged to show authority
• Aim of study

  To determine whether or not people conformed to social roles
• Prisoners

  • Became more submissive
• Guards

  • Became more authoritative
• What did the guards do?

  Guards forced prisoners to clean toilets with bare hands
• Prisoners rebelled by

  1. Ripping their uniform

  2. Shouting and swearing at guards
• The study had to stop after 6 days instead of the intended 2 weeks
• Guards became more aggressive and brutal, even enjoying their power
• Prisoners became depressed
• Conclusion

  Social role’s influence our behaviour/People conform to social roles
• Ethical issues (AO3) -

  • Lack of protection from harm
  • Lack of fully informed consent
• Zimbardo's prison study

  • Did not protect participants from harm
  • Many participants were found to be depressed, experiencing stress and anxiety attacks
  • Prisoners were arrested from home without consent or prior knowledge
• Zimbardo's prison study breached BPS guidelines of fully informed consent and protection from harm
• Good control (AO3) +

  • Randomly allocated roles of prisoner and prison guard
  • Only accepted emotionally stable individuals
  • To eliminate individual differences
• Eliminating individual differences

  Increased internal validity
• Increased internal validity

  Allowed for a cause and effect relationship to be established
• Lacks population validity (AO3) -

  • Sample consisted of only white male American university students
  • Findings cannot be generalised to the rest of the population as not everyone is a university student
  • We do not know whether women and people from other cultures may have conformed the same way in the same situation
• Good mundane realism (AO3) +

  • Mock prison used was made to look like a real prison
  • Guards and prisoners were given uniforms to reinforce social roles
  • Arrest of prisoners from home was natural with the help of real police officers