conformity to social roles

• The Stanford prison experiment: the mock prison was set up in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford University in California, USA
• The Stanford prison experiment: male student volunteers were psychologically + physically screened + the 24 most stable of these were assigned to either play the role of 'prisoner' or 'guard'
• The Stanford prison experiment: the prisoners were unexpectedly arrested at home + on entry to the 'prison' they were put through a delousing procedure, given a prison uniform + assigned an ID number
• The Stanford prison experiment: the guards referred to the prisoners only by these numbers throughout the study
• The Stanford prison experiment: prisoners were allowed certain rights, including 3 meals + 3 supervised toilet trips a day + 2 visits per week
• The Stanford prison experiment: participants were allocated the role of guard were given uniforms, clubs, whistles + wore reflective sunglasses (to prevent eye contact)
• The Stanford prison experiment: Zimbardo himself took the role of Prison Superintendent, the study was planned to last 2 weeks
• The Stanford prison experiment: over the 1st few days of the study the guards grew increasingly tyrannical + abusive towards the prisoners
• The Stanford prison experiment: they woke up prisoners in the night + forced them to clean the toilets w/ their bare hands + made them carry out other degrading activities
• The Stanford prison experiment: some guards were so enthusiastic in their role that they volunteered to do extra hours w/o pay
• The Stanford prison experiment: the participants appeared at times to forget that this was only a psychological study + that they were merely acting
• The Stanford prison experiment: even when they were unaware of being watched, they still conformed to their role of prisoner of guard
• The Stanford prison experiment: when 1 prisoner had had enough he asked for 'parole' rather than asking to withdraw from the study
• The Stanford prison experiment: 5 prisoners had to be released early because of their extreme reactions (e.g. crying, rage, acute anxiety) - symptoms that had started to appear after just 2 days
• The Stanford prison experiment: the study was finally terminated after only 6 days, following the intervention of postgraduate student Christina Maslach (later to become Zimbardos wife) who reminded the researcher that this was a psychological study as as such did not justify the abuse being meted out to the participants
• The Stanford prison experiment: this study demonstrated that both guards + prisoners conformed to their social roles
• The Stanford prison experiment: the guards became increasingly cruel + sadistic + the prisoners became increasingly passive + accepting of their plight
• the BBC Prison Study: like the Stanford Prison experiment, the BBC study (so called because it was broadcast as an ongoing documentary by the BBC) randomly assigned men to the role of guard or prisoner + examined their behaviour within specially created 'prison'
• the Stanford Prison Experiment: 6 guards, 6 prisoners
• the BBC Prison Study: 15 male participants were divided into 5 groups of 3 people, who were closely matched as possible on key personality variables + from each group of 3, 1 person was randomly chosen to be guard + the other 2 prisoners
• the BBC Prison Study: this study was to run for 8 days
• the BBC Prison Study: the key finding of this study was that participants didn't conform automatically to their assigned role as had happened in the SPE
• the BBC Prison Study: over the course of the study, the prisoners increasingly identified as a group + worked collectively to challenge the authority of the guards + establish a more egalitarian set of social relations within the prison
• the BBC Prison Study: the guards also failed to identify w/ their role, which made them reluctant to impose their authority on the prisoners, this led to a shift of power + the collapse of the prisoner-guard system
• evaluation of SPE - S: control was high in this observation, where everything was filmed and recorded
• evaluation of SPE - S: consent was given but participants were not fully informed, e.g. the prisoners were not aware that they would be arrested at home
• evaluation of SPE - L: there were severe reactions by the prisoners, although there was a very thorough debrief afterwards, Haney et al failed to protect participants = ethics
• evaluation of SPE - L: real prisoners are worse this was clearly an artificial setting + so it lacks validity = ecological validity