Chapter 18 Flashcards
(54 cards)
Group
A group consists of two or more people. Individuals in the group must interact with each other over a period of time. Individuals in a group must influence each other. Members of a group must have a common purpose.
Power
A person is said to have power over another if there is a reasonable expectation
that the second person will behave in the way the rst person desires, even against the second person’s own wishes. For example, a motor mechanic has power over a customer with little mechanical knowledge. However, the employer has power over the mechanic, who may need this job to feed and house their family.
6 sources of power
Reward Coercive Information Legitimate Expert Power Referent
What is leadership
The ability to manage or regulate other people.
Reward
Ability to provide a desired response
Teacher can allow students to leave early
Coercive
Ability to provide an unpleasant response
Teacher can detain students
Information
Having knowledge that others desire
Secretary knows where all information is filed
Legitimate
Power is given by a higher authority and may be due to role or position
Police officer or coach of sports team
Expert
Power is due to skills and depth of knowledge
Doctor or motor mechanic
Referent
Power from others’ desire to relate to the person
Admired sports star or a good friend
3 Leadership Styles
Democratic
Authoritarian
Laissez-faire
Democratic
The leader negotiates tasks with the group members.
Authoritarian
The leader makes all the decisions and controls the behaviour of the group.
Laissez-faire
The leader takes no part in the proceedings.
Results of leadership study
As predicted, the democratic group was happier and more productive than the other two. The authoritarian group was productive, but only when the leader was actively managing the process. The laissez-faire group was low in productivity and its members were less happy than members of either of the other groups.
Year and location of Zimbardo’s prison experiment
1971, Stanford University
Participant selection
To obtain participants for this experiment, an advertisement was placed in the university newspaper o ering volunteers US$15 per day (about $120 in today’s Australian money).
All 70 of those who applied were interviewed and given personality tests. The 24 applicants who showed the highest levels of physical health and mental stability were selected. Eighteen
of them were randomly allocated to be either ‘prison guards’ or ‘prisoners’; the remaining six stayed on call to make up numbers if a participant dropped out during the experiment.
Prison superintendent and guards, uniform and instructions
The prison superintendent (high status) was Dr Phillip Zimbardo.
The guards (high status) were given:
> military-style uniforms and re ective sunglasses to
disguise their individuality and cause them to have fewer inhibitions about the way they behave (this process is called deindividuation)
> whistles and batons to emphasise their authority.
The guards were instructed:
> to impose their will on the prisoners using psychological intimidation
> not to use physical violence on prisoners
> to blindfold prisoners when they needed to leave the prison to use the toilet
> to touch the prisoners with their batons if necessary, but not hit them.
Prisoners, uniform and instructions
The prisoners (low status) were given:
> short, sack-like smocks to wear, with no underwear
> hats made of ladies’ stockings to cover their hair
> a prison number
> a chain around the ankles, to ensure that they could never forget their status. The prisoners were instructed:
> to obey all instructions from the guards
> to ask permission to use the toilet, smoke a cigarette or write a letter
> to refer to themselves by their prison number, not their name; together with their
garments, this meant that deindividuation applied to the prisoners, with the e ect of reducing their sense of self.
The setting
The setting was the basement of the Psychology Department at Stanford University, which had:
> no windows
> cells, 2 m × 3 m in size, opening o a corridor which was boarded up at each end
> opposite the cells, a cupboard of 60 cm × 60 cm × 213 cm, tall enough to stand up
in, used as the solitary con nement cell.
9 Step Procedure
- Mock arrests.
- Police car taking prisoners to station.
- Prisoners fingerprinted and blindfolded.
- Taken to jail in prison van, interviewed by superintendent.
- Prisoners stripped and sprayed with delousing agent.
- Prisoners issued clothing.
- Guards worked shifts to watch over prisoners.
- Prisoners woken early morning to attend role call.
- Guards punished prisoners, push ups, humiliating acts, i love you, walk like Frankenstein.
Deindividuation
Deindividuation is the loss of self awareness in groups. The guards were given military-style uniforms and reflective sunglasses to disguise their individuality and cause them to have fewer inhibitions about the way they behave (this process is called deindividuation).
Aim
To investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life, to see if it was personality traits or situational characteristics caused the participants behaviour.
IV AND DV
The independent variable of the experiment is the random assignment of roles as either guard or prisoner. The dependent variable is the measured behaviour of the participants in the simulated prison.
