Zimbardo

• Procedure


  Took place in a mock prison in Stanford University. 24 Male student participants were randomly allocated to either prisoner or guard after being assessed emotionally stable. Went through the process of deindividuation as they were given clothing to remove their personal identity. Guards wore uniforms, mirrored sunglasses and carried truncheons. Guards weren't allowed to use physical violence but had complete power. Zimbardo also acted as head of the prison. giving directions. The observation was planned to run for 14 days.
• Procedure 2


  Prisoners were' arrested' strip searched and dressed in a degrading smock uniform. Prisoners were referred to as numbers and not names and had 16 rules to follow which were enforced by the guards.
• Findings


  Guards became aggressive and psychologically harmed prisoners with acts of public humiliation. Deprived them of sleep, issued physical exercise punishments, and forced them to carry out degrading cleaning tasks. Guards harassed prisoners constantly. After 2 days, prisoners started to rebel, ripping their uniforms and shouting and swearing at the guards. Once the rebellion stopped, prisoners became passive and depressed. Many showed signs of distress and some had to be released and 1 prisoner went on hunger strike. The experiment stopped after 6 days.
• Conclusions


  Participants conformed to the behaviours and attitudes of the 2 social groups, explaining conformity to social roles. Zimbardo's research also provides strong evidence for identification because participants changed their behaviour to show group membership. They displayed a public and private change in their behaviour only whilst they identified with the group.
• Strengths of Zimbardo's research

  • high control over extraneous variables - procedure does not include uncontrolled variables that could affect the DV - Zimbardo chose emotionally stable participants - increases the internal validity.
• Limitations of Zimbardo's research

  • demand characteristics - participants perceive the demands of the study - Banuazizi and Movahedi argued that participants were play-acting and behaviour was based on stereotypes - However Zimbardo's research showed that 90% of conversations were about prison life.
  • Lack of research support - Reicher and Haslam found different findings when partially replicating the study - guards failed to develop a shared social identity as a group whereas the prisoners did - behaviour and brutality was due to shared social identity as a group.
• Limitation of Zimbardo research 2

  • ethical issues including psychological harm and right to withdraw - Zimbardo played as both the head researcher and the prison superintendent - when a participant wanted to leave the study, Zimbardo responded as prison superintendent rather than as a researcher - limited the protection of the participants from harm