PAPER 1 - Social Influence - Conformity to social roles Flashcards
(10 cards)
What was Zimbardo’s research into conformity to social roles called?
The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) 1973
Outline Zimbardo’s SPE.
Zimbardo et al. 1973 set up a mock prison in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford University to investigate the effect of social roles on conformity.
21 male student volunteers were involved in the study - selected by psychological testing that showed them to be ‘emotionally stable’.
They were randomly allocated to the role of guard or prisoner.
The social roles were encouraged by 2 routes:
1. Uniform…prisoners were strip-reached, given a uniform and number (no names), this encouraged deindividuation.
Guards enforced rules, had own uniform with handcuffs etc.
2. Instructions about behaviour…prisoners were told they could not leave but would have to ask for parole.
Guards were told they had complete power over prisoners.
Outline what happened in Zimbardo’s SPE.
The guards played their roles enthusiastically and treated prisoners harshly.
The prisoners rebelled within two days - they ripped their uniforms, shouted and swore at guards.
The guards retaliated with fire extinguishers and harassed the prisoners - reminder of their powerless role e.g. frequent headcounts, including at night.
Outline the findings of Zimbardo’s SPE.
The guards’ behaviour threatened the prisoner’s psychological and physical health. For example,
1. After the rebellion was put down, the prisoners became subdued.
2. Three prisoners were released early because they showed signs of psychological disturbance.
3. One prisoner went on hunger strike; the guards attempted to force-feed him and punished him but putting him in ‘the hole’, a tiny dark closet.
The study was stopped after 6 days instead of the planned 14 days.
Outline Zimbardo’s conclusions from his SPE.
Social roles are powerful influences on behaviour - most conformed strongly to their role.
Guards became brutal, prisoners became submissive.
Other volunteers also easily conformed to their roles in the prison (e.g. the chaplain).
What is the Lucifer effect?
Zimbardo has suggested that good people can do evil things…it is not a rotten apple turning other apples in the barrel rotten but the barrel itself is rotten.
Evaluate the strength of control over key variables in the SPE.
Emotionally stable participants were recruited and randomly allocated the roles of guard or prisoner.
The guards and prisoners had those roles only be chance. So their behaviour was due to the role itself and not their personalities.
This control increased the study’s internal validity, so we have more confidence in drawing conclusions about the effect of social roles on conformity.
Evaluate the limitation of limited realism in the SPE.
Banuazizi and Mohavedi 1975 suggest participants were play-acting. Their performances reflected stereotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave.
One guard based his role on a character from the film Cool Hand Luke. Prisoners rioted because they thought this is what real prisoners did.
This suggests the SPE tells us little about social conformity to social roles in actual prisons.
COUNTERPOINT: Participants behaved as if the prison was real, e.g. 90% of conversations were about prison life, Prisoner 416 believed it was a prison run by psychologists.
This suggests the SPE replicated the roles of guard and prisoners just as in a real prison, increasing internal validity.
Evaluate the limitation of Zimbardo exaggerating the power of roles.
The power of social roles to influence behaviours may have been exaggerated in the SPE (Fromm 1973).
1/3 only of the guards behaved brutally.
1/3 applied rules fairly.
The rest supported the prisoners, offering them cigarettes and reinstating privileges.
This suggests the SPE overstates the view that the guards were conforming to a brutal role and minimised dispositional influences e.g. personality.
Evaluate an alternate explanation for the SPE (the social identity theory).
Zimbardo claimed participants naturally took on their social roles - just having a role meant that participants conformed to expectations associated with it.
However, this doesn’t explain those guards who were not brutal.
Social identity theory (Reicher and Haslam 2006) argues those who identify with the role of guard conform.
This shows that it is possible to resist situational pressures to conform to a social role, as long as the individual does not identify with that role.
