Conformity to social roles

• Stanford Prison experiment (Zimbardo) Haney et Al 1973

  Setup:

  • 24 male students, analysed as most healthy among volunteers. Randomly assigned role. Prisoners surprise arrested at home, given uniform and ID number. Guards only referred to prisoners by numbers. Prisoners only allowed 3 meals and supervised toilet trips a day, and 2 visits per week. Guards wore sunglasses to prevent eye contact. Zimbardo was a guard.
• Stanford Prison experiment (Zimbardo) Haney et Al 1973

  Findings:

  • Guards grew tyrannical and cruel. Forces prisoners to clean toilets barehanded, among other degrading activities. Ps appeared to forget it was a study. Ps had to ask for parole when they wanted to leave study. 5 prisoners released early due to extreme reactions. Study stopped after only 6 days (was meant to last 2 weeks)
• BBC prison study, Reicher and Haslam 2006:

  • Men randomly assigned roles. 15 Ps divided into 5 groups of 3. One chosen to be guard, the others prisoners. Study meant to be 8 days
  • Ps did not really conform to roles. Prisoners worked as collective to challenge guard authority and establish egalitarian rules. Guards reluctant to impose authority on prisoners. Power shift happened and prisoner-guard system collapsed
• AO3

  • Haslam and Reicher 2012, didn't believe guards drift into sadism was an automatic consequence of embracing the role. In SPE, the guard behaviour varied. Some were fully sadistic, while some were ‘good’, not degrading or harassing prisoners, even doing them small favours. Argues the guards choose how they acted, not due to blind conformity
• AO3

  • Banuazizi and Movahedi 1975, argued SPE behaviour due to demand characteristics. When they presented students who didn't know of the study, most were able to guess the purpose of the experiment anyway. Suggests SPE guard and prisoner behaviour due to the ‘compelling prison environment’, but because the Ps thought they needed to act that way
• AO3

  • While Stanford Uni ethics committee approved, study criticised for its ethics. Zimbardo admits it should have been stopped sooner. Attempted to make amends by carrying out many debriefing sessions later on. In BBC study, Reicher and Haslam took greater effort to reduce potential harm
• AO3

  • Zimbardo argues SPE can explain Abu Ghraib torture 2003/2004. Argued the lack of training, boredom, and lack of accountability to higher authority the US soldiers had is what led them to abuse Iraq prisoners, like in SPE
• AO3

  • Zimbardo claims brutality of guards due to being allocated role guard and asserting power related to the role. Reicher and Haslam reject claim that group behaviour unnecessarily mindless and tyrannical. BBC study shows that strong groups depend on norms and values associated with specific social identity