Zimbardo (social roles)

• Aim of the study

  To investigate the extent to which people would conform to the roles in a role-playing simulation of prison life.
• PROCEDURE

  • The Stanford Prison study - A mock prison at Stanford University USA.
  • Controlled participant observation
  • 24 male students from a volunteer sample.
  • All volunteers were psychologically and physically screened.
  • Participants were randomly allocated to either the role of prisoner or guard.
• FINDINGS

  • Dehumanisation was apparent as the guards began to humiliate the prisoners and made them clean the toilets with their bare hands.
  • Deindividualisation was noticeable by the prisoners referring to each other and themselves by their prison numbers instead of their names
  • Guards, prisoners and researchers all conformed to their social roles within the prison
• Strength 


  Real Life Example – Zimbardo argues that the same conformity to social role effect that was present in Abu Ghraib, a military prison in Iraq notorious for the torture and abuse of Iraq prisoners by US soldiers in 2003/2004
• Limitation


  Ethical Issues - A major problem with the procedure of Zimbardo’s study are the ethical issues that it raised. Ethical issue arose due to Zimbardo’s dual role and participants were not protected from psychological harm.