Conformity- conformity to social roles

• Social roles


  The various roles we play in society that help dictate our behaviour
• Examples of social roles include student, parent, employee, prisoner, and so on
• How we conform to social roles

  1. Conform through uniforms and instructions about behaviour

  2. Lose personal identity (de-individuation)

  3. Identify with the perceived social role
• The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE)


  • Zimbardo et al. (1973) set up a mock prison to investigate how social roles influence behaviour
  • Participants were randomly assigned to be either prisoners or guards
  • Guards took up their roles enthusiastically and treated prisoners harshly
  • Prisoners rebelled at first but then became subdued, depressed and anxious
  • Zimbardo ended the study after 6 days instead of the intended 14
• When people are assigned social roles

  They tend to conform to the expected behaviours of that role
• Even volunteers who came in to perform specific functions (such as the prison chaplain) found themselves behaving as if they were in a prison rather than a psychological study
• Concepts from the Stanford Prison Experiment

  • Abu Ghraib
• The Stanford Prison Experiment showed that social roles can have a strong influence on individuals' behaviour, causing them to conform to the expected behaviours of that role
• Concepts from the Stanford Prison Experiment have been applied to real-world situations like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal