Zimbardo's Prison Experiment

Question 1

What is a social role?

not needed for 12 marker but could be a definition question

Answer 1

• The ‘parts’ people play as members of various social groups e.g. being a teacher, student, parent, etc
• These are accompanied by expectations of what is appropriate behaviour for said role e.g. caring, obedience

Question 2

What was Zimbardo’s aim?

Answer 2

To investigate the extent to which people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing simulation of prison life

Question 3

What was Zimbardo’s method?

Answer 3

BEFORE:
- A mock prison was set up in the basement of Stanford University
- Zimbardo recruited 24 male students through volunteer sampling
- All volunteers were psychologically and physically screened to select those who were most stable with no violent or anti-social tendencies and were randomly allocated to either the role of prisoner or guard

DURING:
- The prisoners were unexpectedly arrested at home and taken to the prison
- The study was meant to last 14 days

Question 4

What were Zimbardo’s findings?

Answer 4

• Within a day the prisoners rebelled and ripped off their numbers. The guards responded by confiscating their blankets and using aggressive behaviour
• Dehumanisation occurred as the guards humiliated the prisoners until they were submissive
• Deindividuation was apparent as prisoners referred to themselves and eachother by their prison numbers instead of names. In guards, they all wore dark sunglasses
• The prisoners became rapidly depressed. After 36 hours, 1 prisoner was released as he showed signs of psychological disturbances. 3 more prisoners developed similar symptoms and were released later

Question 5

What were Zimbardo’s conclusions?

Answer 5

• People do show conformity to social roles in a situation and this affects behaviour
• The power of the situation e.g. assigned social roles influences behaviour rather than dispopsitional factors

Question 6

How is control a strength?

Answer 6

• A strength of Zimbardo’s study is that there was good control over variables
• Zimbardo controlled for emotional stability because all PPs were rated emotionally stable before the experiment and randomly allocated the role of prisoner or guard
• This helped rule out individual differences explaining behaviour. Without random allocation and allowing PPs to pick their own role it is arguable that those with more dominant characteristics would pick guard and those who were more submissive would pick prisoner
• Thus random allocation allows us to be sure that any differences in behaviour are due to social roles not individual differences
• This validates the study as we can be confident in the cause and effect relationship between social roles and behaviour

Question 7

How is ethics a weakness?

Answer 7

• A weakness of Zimbardo’s SPE is that it breaks ethical guidelines
• Zimbardo’s dual role of researcher and prison warden interfered with the psychological protection of some volunteers
• One prisoner had to be released after 36 hours as he showed signs of psychological disturbances. Thus, Zimbardo failed to ensure the protection of his participants as he was too engrossed in his role within the experiment
• Also, the prisoners were not given full right to withdrawal - at many points they asked to be released and leave but were forced to stay by the guards and Zimbardo did nothing to stop this
• These ethical issues undermine the credibility of the study

Question 8

How is exaggeration a weakness?

Answer 8

• Another weakness is that Zimbardo may have exaggerated the influence of social roles on behaviour
• Zimbardo himself noted that only 1/3 of the guards behaved brutally towards prisoners, the majority either trying to help or support the prisoners or apply the prison rules fairly
• This shows that the social roles may have had a less significant effect on behaviour than Zimbardo suggested as not all guards were affected by their role in the same way
• Thus situational pressures to conform to social roles are moderated by personality factors
• This reduces the validity of Zimbardo’s conclsions

Question 9

How is population validity a weakness?

Answer 9

• A weaness of Zimbardo’s study is that it lacks population valodoty
• He only studied male PPs from the USA thus makung the sample gender-biased due to the lack of female PPs
• Many studies such as Cohn show that females have more empathy than males thus making them less likely have conformed to the cruel uncaring behaviour the guards showed
• Also, the sample was culture-biased as it only used PPs fro an individualistic culture thus findings aren’t applicable to collectivist cultures who could show greater conformity to social roles due to their emphasis on the needs of the group over the individual (Smith and Bond)
• Thus Zimbardo’s lack population validity and so decrease in overall validity