Conformity to Social Roles: Zimbardo's Research
- Created by: Rachaelshannonx
- Created on: 13-01-20 15:54
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- Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment
- PROCEDURE - mock prison in uni basement, pts were 'emotionally stable' & selected from volunteers after lots of psych testing. they were randomly allocated social roles of prisoner who had to follow rules given by guards, they both had full uniform & prisoners were arrested from their homes, stripped & fingerprinted by real police
- FINDINGS - the enthusiastic guards became a threat to the psychological & physical health of prisoners, had to stop study after 6 days instead of 14. within 2 days prisoners rebelled, guards harassed them (headcounts in the middle of the night). After the rebellion, prisoners became depressed, one left on the first day with signs of psychological disturbance, 2 left on day 4 & one went on hunger strike with guards putting him in 'the hole'.
- CONCLUSIONS - revealed that the power of the situation influences people's behaviour. Everyone involved conformed to roles & behaved as if they were in a real prison (even small roles such as chaplain).
- Control
- High level of control over variables - emotionally stable pts being randomly assigned. tried to rule out individual personality differences as an explanation. increases internal validity.
- Lack of realism
- Banuazizi & Mohavedi (1975) argued that pts were play-acting, taking on stereotypes of the role of prisoner or guard - one guard based his off a film character. BUT 90% of convos were about prison life, real to pts so increased internal validity.
- Role of dispositional factors
- Fromm (1973) accused Zimbardo of exaggerating power of situation & minimising personality influences. only 1/3 of guards were brutal, 1/3 wanted to apply rules fairly & 1/3 were supportive of prisoners.
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