conformity: social roles (SPE) ao3

Question 1

Weakness - individual differences (zimbardo SPE)

Answer 1

P; Fromm (1973) accused Zimbardo of exaggerating the power of the situation to influence behaviour, minimising the role of personality.
E; In Zimbardo’s original experiment the behaviour of the guards varied dramatically,
E: There was extremely sadistic behaviour displayed by around one third of the participants in that role, but also a few guards who actually helped the prisoners by offering support, sympathy, offering them cigarettes and reinstating any privileges lost.
L: This suggests that situational factors are not the only cause of conformity to social roles, and dispositional factors such as personality also play a role, implying that Zimbardo’s conclusion could have been overstated.

Question 2

Weakness - lack of research support (SPE)

Answer 2

P; A recent replication of the Stanford Prison Experiment, carried out by E: Reicher and Haslam (2006), contradicts the findings of Zimbardo.
Reicher and Haslam replicated Zimbardo’s research by randomly assigning 15 men to the role of prisoner or guard.
E: In this replication, the participants did not conform to their social roles automatically. For example, the guards did not identify with their status and refused to impose their authority; the prisoners identified as a group to challenge the guard’s authority, which resulted in a shift of power and a collapse of the prison system.
L: These results clearly contradict the findings of Zimbardo and suggest that conformity to social roles may not be automatic as Zimbardo originally implied, but may infact be more down to the shared social identity of a specific group.

Question 3

Strength - real life applications (SPE)

Answer 3

P: Results and findings from Stanford prison study have been used to explain some real word atrocities tagt have been committed in prisons
E: for example, in 2003 and 2004 US soldiers tortured and abused iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison.
E: Zimbardo believed the soldiers comitting these serious human rights violations were victims of the situational factors that made abuse more likely
The same factors in SPE eg no training and no accountability to
Higher authority figure were present at Abu Ghraib adding opportunity to misuse power is what lead to abuse in SPE and Abu Ghraib
L: thus meaningful conclusions from Zimbardos study can be used to explain these atrocities and also ensure they don’t take place again.

Question 4

limitation - ethical issues (SPE)

Answer 4

P: one major limitation of the spe is its ethical issues
E: prisoners were not protected from harm, they underwent major psychological distress and many felt like they didnt have the right to withdraw. for example prisoners were forced to do dehumanising tasks like being woken uo in the middle of the nigh and being forced to wash the toilet with their bare hands
E: the extent of disregard for ethical guidelines is proven by the fact that the experiment was stopped after 6 days even though it was meant to go on for 14.
L: thus zimbardos work demonstrates the need for strict ethical controls in psychological experiments, especially those that put ppts in harms way.