conformity to social roles: zimbardos research

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participants
24 male participants,10 prisioners 12 guards $15 a day. 3 prisoners a room, change every 8 hours.
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procedure
zimbardo set up a mock prision in a uni basement they avertised for students willing to volunteer and seleted those deemed as emotionally stable, they where then randomly assigned to roles of guard and prisioner. the prisioners where taken from their
2 of 14
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homes and they where hand cuffed by real local police, blindfolded, stripped and deloused. the social roles where clearly divided. there was 16 rules that the guards enforced 3 on a shift. prisoners are called by numbers not names. guards had wooden
3 of 14
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batterns, handcuff, uniform and keys and mirror shades. they had complete power over the prisioners.
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findings:
the guards took to much to theirs roles endangouring the prisioners psychological and physical health so the study was called off after 6 days instead of the 14. in 2 days the P rebelled and ripped their uniforms, the G retaliated with fire extinguis
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-hers. the G cae up with a 'divde-and-rule' tactic and would do regular head counts whenever they liked and harras them. they would punish them over the smallest thing. the P become depressed and anxious, one was released on the first day as he showe
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-d symptoms of psychological disturbance. 2 more on the 4th day and one went on a hungers strike, the guards force fed him and then put him in 'the whole' in order to punish him, the other prisioners turned against him. the prisioners became more br
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-utal and seemed to enjoy their roles.
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conclusions
the simulation the power of the situation can influence peoples behaviour. all roles conformed. it was very easy for the people to get into their role, even people like the prision chplins said they conformed.
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evaluation: control strength
a strength isthat zimbardo and collegues had control over variables. e.g: selestion of participants, this helped rule out persionality as a way of individual differences. this has highly increased internal validity.
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evaluation: lack of realism weakness
mohavedid argued that ppt was play acting and not actually conforming and that they was acting based on how they believed they where supposed too based on sterotypes. for example one guard said he based his behaviour on a brutal film cool hand luke w
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which would also explain why the prisioners rioted. however this was argued by zimabardo as he had quantative data 90% of convos wher about prision life and P413 said it was like prision but run by psychologists instead of the government.
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evaluation: role of dispositional influences weakness
fromm (1973) accused zimbardo of exageratting the power of the sitution to influence behaviour. only 1/3 of the guards acted brutally and the others were fair offering them ciggerettes and rewards. this suggest that zimabrdos conclusion is overstated
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and that the guards dispositional factors allowed them to choose the right or wrong choices despite the situational pressures to conform to a role
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

zimbardo set up a mock prision in a uni basement they avertised for students willing to volunteer and seleted those deemed as emotionally stable, they where then randomly assigned to roles of guard and prisioner. the prisioners where taken from their

Back

procedure

Card 3

Front

homes and they where hand cuffed by real local police, blindfolded, stripped and deloused. the social roles where clearly divided. there was 16 rules that the guards enforced 3 on a shift. prisoners are called by numbers not names. guards had wooden

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

batterns, handcuff, uniform and keys and mirror shades. they had complete power over the prisioners.

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

the guards took to much to theirs roles endangouring the prisioners psychological and physical health so the study was called off after 6 days instead of the 14. in 2 days the P rebelled and ripped their uniforms, the G retaliated with fire extinguis

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
View more cards

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