Zimbardo

• BOOSTER


  Major elements to
• Key study


  The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE)
• PROCEDURE


  1. Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues (Haney et al. 1973) set up a mock

  2. University to test whether the brutality of prison guards was the result

  3. of sadistic personalities or whether it was created by the situation

  4. They recruited 24 emotionally stable students determined by

  5. psychological testing-randomly assigned roles of guards or

  6. prisoners

  7. To increase realism, 'prisoners' were arrested in their homes and

  8. delivered to the 'prison-blindfolded, strip-searched, deloused and

  9. issued a uniform and number.

  10. The prisoners daily routines were heavily regulated. There were 16

  11. rules to follow, enforced by guards working in shifts, three at a time.
• De-individuation (losing a sense of personal identity)


  • Prisoners' names were never used, only their numbers.
  • Guards had their own uniform-wooden club, handcuffs, keys and
  • mirror shades. They were told they had complete power over the
  • prisoners, for instance deciding when they could go to the toilet.
• • Within two days, the prisoners rebelled against their treatment. They
  • ripped their uniforms and shouted and swore at the guards, who
  • retaliated with fire extinguishers.
• • Guards harassed the prisoners constantly by conducting frequent
  • headcounts, sometimes in the middle of the night.
• • Guards highlighted the differences in social roles by creating
  • opportunities to enforce the rules and punish slight misdemeanours
• • The guards took up their roles with enthusiasm. Their behaviour
  • threatened the prisoners' psychological and physical health. For
  • example:
• • 1. After the rebellion was put down, the prisoners became subdued,
  • anxious and depressed.
• • 2. Three prisoners were released early because they showed signs of
  • psychological disturbance.
• • 3. One prisoner went on hunger strike; the guards attempted to force
  • feed him and punished him by putting him in 'the hole', a tiny dark
  • closet.
• The study was stopped after six days instead of the planned eight days
• A strength of the SPE is that the researchers had some control over variables.
• • Emotionally stable
  • participants were
  • recruited and randomly
  • assigned the roles of
  • guard or prisoner.
• • The guards and prisoners
  • had those roles only
  • by chance. So their
  • behaviour was due to
  • the pressures of the
  • situation and not their
  • personalities.
• • Control increases
  • the study's internal
  • validity. We can be
  • more confident in
  • drawing conclusions
  • about the influences of
  • social roles on behaviour.
• A potential limitation with the SPE is a lack of realism.
• • Banuazizi and
  • Mohaved (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 Lake
• • Prisoners ricted because
  • they thought that is
  • what real prisoners did.
• • But Zimbardo's data
  • showed 90% of the
  • prisoners' conversations
  • were about prison life
• • The simulation seemed
  • real to them, increasing
  • the study's internal
  • validity.
• Fromm (1973) argues that Zimbardo understated dispositional influences.
• • Only a third of the
  • guards behaved brutally
• • Another third applied
  • the rules fairly. The rest
  • supported the prisoners,
  • offering them cigarettes
  • and reinstating
  • privileges.
• • Zimbardo's condusion
  • that participants
  • conformed to social roles
  • -may be over-stated,
  • exaggerating the power
  • of the situation
• • The differences in the
  • guards behaviour show
  • that they could exercise
  • right and wrong choices,
  • despite situational
  • pressures to conform to
  • a role
• SPE lacks research support and has been contradicted by subsequent research.
• • Reicher and Haslam
  • (2006) partially
  • replicated the SPE
  • with different findings
• • Prisoners eventually took
  • control.
• • Tajfel's (1981) social
  • identity theory (SIT)
  • explains this. Guards in
  • the replication failed to
  • develop shared social
  • identity as a group.
• • but prisoners did and
  • refused to accept limits
  • of their assigned roles.
• • So the brutality of the
  • guards in the original
  • SPE was due to a shared
  • social identity as a
  • cohesive group, rather
  • than conformity to their
  • social roles
• A limitation is that there were major ethical issues with the SPE.
• • One issue arose because
  • Zimbardo was bath lead
  • researcher and prison
  • Superintendent.
• • A student who wanted
  • to leave the study
  • spoke to Zimbardo,
  • who responded as a
  • superintendent worried
  • about the running of
  • his prison rather than
  • as a researcher
• • This limited Zimbardo's
  • ability to protect his
  • participants from
  • harm because his
  • superintendent role
  • conflicted with his lead
  • researcher role.
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• • With reference
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