A strength of the SPE is that Zimbardo and his colleagues had some control over variables, for example the selection of participants. Emotionally stable individuals chosen and randomly assigned role of either prisoner or guard.
This was one way the researchers tried to rule out individual personality differences.
Having such control over variables is a strength because it increases the internal validity of the study. So we can be more confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of roles on behaviour.
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Problem of demand characteristics:
Banuazizi and Mohavedi argued that the behaviour of Zimbardo's guards and prisoners was not due to their response to a compelling prison environment, but rather due to powerful demand characteristics in the experimental situation itself.
They presented some of the details of the SPE procedure to a large sample of students who had never heard of the study. The vast majority of these students correctly guessed the purpose of the experiment was to show that ordinary people assigned the role of guard or prisoner would act like real prisoners or guards.
Therefore, the participants may have conformed to their social roles as they figured out the purpose of the study, therefore reducing its validity.
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Findings in a real-life context:
Zimbardo argues the same conformity to social roles in SPE was also present in Abu Ghraib (a military prison in Iraq.)
He believed the guards that committed the abuses were the victims of situational factors that made the abuse more likely, such as lack of training, unrelenting boredom and no accountability (present in SPE also.)
These, combined with an opportunity to misuse the power led to the prisoner abuses in both situations.
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