Conformity to social roles-Zimbardo’s Research -A-Level Psychology

The Stanford prison experiment

Zimbardo and his colleagues wanted to see the conditions as to why police officers behave brutally-sadistic personalities or because of the situation they are in

Procedure:

A mock prison was set up in the basement of the univeristy.Male student volunteers were psychologically and physically screened ,the 24 most stable of these were randomly assigned to either play the role of the prisoner and guard.

The prisoners were unexpectedly arrested at home and when they arrived they were put through a delousing procedure ,given prison uniforms, and an ID number.

Prisoners were allowed certain rights (3 meals,3 supervised toilet trips,two visits per week)

The guards were given uniform,clubs,whistles and wore reflective sunglasses to prevent eye contact.Zimbardo played the role of Prison superintendent.

The study was planned to last two weeks.

Findings:

First few days-the guards were increasingly tyrannical and abusive towards the prisoners.They woke up prisoners in the night and forced them to clean the toilets with their bare hands.Some guards were so enthusiastic that they volunteered to do extra hours without pay.Even when they were unaware of being watched ,they still conformed to their roles.One prisoner had had enough and asked for parole rather than asking to withdraw from the study.

5 prisoners had to be released early because of their extreme reactions(crying,rage,anxiety).These symptoms appeared after 2 days.

The study was terminated after 6 days after the researchers were reminded that this was a psychological study and did not justify the abuse to participants.

The study demonstrated that both positions conformed to their social roles.The guards became more cruel and sadistic  and the prisoners became increasingly passive and accepting of their plight.

Evaluation:

Ethical issues-The study should have been stopped earlier as many participants were experiencing emotional distress.Debriefing was carried out for several years after the experiment and it was concluded that there were no long lasting effects.Zimbardo’s duo roles caused ethical issues,at one point a student who wanted to leave the experiment spoke to Zimbardo in his role as the superintendent,Zimbardo responded concerned about the running of his prison rather than as a researcher with responsibilities to his participants.

Conformity to roles is not automatic-Zimbardo believed that the guards sadistic behaviour was a direct consequence of them embracing their role,which stopped them from realising their wrongdoings.However ,only about a 1/3 of the guards behaved in a brutal manner.Some guards didn’t degrade prisoners and sympathised with them ,even doing small favours for them.Haslam and Reicher(2012) argue that this shows that the guards chose how to behave rather than blindly conforming to their social role.This shows how dispositional influences were ignored.

The BBC prison study-partial replication of the SPE.They produced different findings.The prisoners eventually took over the mock prison and subjected the guards to disobedience.The researchers argued that the guards failed to identify with their role and with their collective(shared social identity) as a cohesive group whereas the prisoners were able to do this.This led to a shift of power and retaliation.The researchers used the social identity theory to explain the outcome.