SI - Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo's research

Question 1

Zimbardo’s research on social roles and its evaluation

Answer 1

Stanford prison experiment
Aim: To see if people would conform to the social roles of prisoner or guard in a mock prison

Procedure: 24 physically and mentally healthy male students were randomly assigned to the role of either prisoner or guard. Both groups wore uniforms to reinforce their roles.

Results: Participants quickly adopted the behaviours associated with their roles: guards became increasingly assertive and aggressive, while prisoners became submissive and distressed.

The experiment was stopped after 6 days (instead of 14) due to extreme emotional distress among prisoners.

Conclusion: Guards and prisoners adopted their social roles quickly. Zimbardo claims this shows that our social role can influence our behaviour - seemingly well-balanced men became unpleasant and aggressive in the role of a guard

EV:
- Observer-bias; Zimbardo admitted he became too personally involved
- Doesn’t explain why the participants conformed to their roles
- Artificial environment, cannot be generalised to real-life situations
- Bad ethics, some participants found the experience extremely distressing
- Controlled observation so good control of variables

Question 2

What are social roles?

Answer 2

• Social roles are the behaviours that society expect from you
• When we accept a role, we internalise these expectations so they shape our behaviour