Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment concluded that simply being put into a role is enough to create tyrannical behaviours.
Guards had abused their authority and created such distress in the prisoners that the simulation was stopped after 6 days.
R & H disagreed with this analysis and argue that Social Identity Theory may provide a better explanation.
They decided to revisit the situation but to avoid some of the methodological criticisms of the SPE and to test whether SIT can explain group behaviors within the environment.
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Method, Procedure and Controls
R&H gained ethical approval for the experimental case study.
They also had ethics panel to monitor the study 24/7.
An artificial prison environment was then built by the BBC with cameras.
Advertised for volunteers in newspapers - 332 applied reduced to 15 by a range of psychometric tests and clinical assessments to ensure suitability.
Guards were inducted and devised prison rules.
No physical violence allowed.
Next day prisoners were brought in individually, had heads shaved, given prisoner uniforms and number.
Observed via CCTV, also completed psychometric tests (eg. Social Identification/Authoritarianism/Depression) & physiological tests daily.
Two interventions were implemented.
Guard promotion (permeability) on day 3 and Trade Unionist (cognitive alternatives) on day 4.
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Results
The guards did not develop group identity; they could not agree norms/priorities.
Before guard promotion (Day 3) prisoners worked as individuals.
After day 3, when roles were fixed (impermeable) the prisoners developed group identity and challenged the guards, this led to a shift in power and a collapse of the prisoner/guard system.
On day 6 prisoners broke out of cells and the regime of the guards ended.
All of the participants decided to continue as a self-governing 'commune' but the prisoners who had led the challenges did not co-operate.
By day 8 more authoritarian system of inequality was being proposed by some of the participants.
The study ended on day 8 due to ethical reasons.
Guard results - Social identification decreased over time, depression increased over time.
Prisoner results - Social identification increased over time, depression decreased over time.
All participants showed an increase in authoritarianism over time.
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Conclusions and Implications
Roles alone are not enough to create tyranny.
A strong social identity allows a group to be effective but also is positive for their mental health, weak social identity has the opposite effect.
Failing groups create problems because when people cannot create a functioning social system they will accept extreme, tyrannical solutions proposed by others.
It is possible to design and run powerful social psychological research studies that are also ethical.
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