Social Influence L5 - Conformity To Social Roles By Zimbardo Flashcards
1
Q
What is conformity to social roles?
A
- The ‘parts’ people play as members of various social groups - accompanied by expectations we and others have of what’s appropriate for each role
- conformity to social roles is simply conforming to the expectations of that particular social role and behaving in a way which is expected of that role e.g. a cashier in a bank is expected to be polite
Common examples include parents, children, student, passenger etc..
2
Q
What does SPE stand for
A
Stanford prison experiment
3
Q
Who carried it out
A
Zimbardo (1973)
4
Q
Zimbardo’s aims
A
- wanted to find out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards (dispositional) or to do with the prison environment (situational)
E.g prisoner and guards may have personalities which make conflict inevitable, with prisoners lacking respect for law and order and guards being domineering and aggressive
- Alternatively, prisoners and guards may behave in a hostile manner due to the rigid power structure of the social environment in prisons.
- If the prisoners and guards behaved in a non-aggressive manner, this would support the dispositional hypothesis, or if they behave the same way as people do in real prisons, this would support the situational explanation.
Aim:
To see whether people will conform to new social roles. In other words, to investigate how readily people would conform
5
Q
Where was the experiment carried out
A
Stanford university psychology building basement - converted it into mock prison
6
Q
How were participants chosen and who were they
A
- advertised over uni for volunteers for study of the ‘psychological effects of prison life’
- more then 70 answered - went through rigorous diagnostic interviews and personality tests to get rid of participants with psychological problems (get rid of variables that could effect study)
- 24 male college students chosen and paid 15 day
7
Q
How many guards and prisoners were there
A
- Participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison environment
- There were two reserves, and one dropped out, finally leaving ten prisoners and 11 guards
8
Q
How did experiment work
A
- guards worked in sets of three (being replaced after an 8-hour shift) and the prisoners were housed three to a room - also a solitary confinement cell for prisoners who ‘misbehaved.
- Arrested at their own homes, without warning, and taken to the local police station where they were booked.’
- Then blindfolded and driven to the psychology department of Stanford University, where Zimbardo had had the basement set out as a prison, with barred doors and windows, bare walls and small cells.
- When prisoners arrived, they were stripped naked, sprayed , had all their personal possessions removed and locked away, and were given prison clothes (uniform) and bedding.
- Each prisoner had to be called only by his ID number and could only refer to himself and the other prisoners by number - made to feel anonymous, had no underwear had a tight nylon cap to cover their hair, and a locked chain around one ankle
- All guards had identical khaki uniforms, carried a whistle around their neck and a billy club borrowed from the police. Guards also wore special sunglasses, to make eye contact with prisoners impossible.
- Guards were instructed to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain law and order in the prison and to command the respect of the prisoners. No physical violence was permitted.
- Zimbardo observed the behaviour of the prisoners and guards (as a researcher), and also acted as a prison warden or superintendent.
9
Q
Results
A
- Zimbardo found that both quickly identified with their social roles
- Within days the prisoners rebelled, but this was quickly crushed by the guards, who then grew increasingly abusive towards the prisoners
The guards dehumanised the prisoners, waking them during the night and forcing them to clean toilets with their bare hands; the prisoners became increasingly submissive, identifying further with their subordinate role - Five of the prisoners were released from the experiment early, because of their adverse reactions to the physical and mental torment, for example, crying and extreme anxiety.
- experiment was set to run for two weeks, it was terminated on day 6, when fellow postgraduate student Christina Maslach convinced Zimbardo that conditions in his experiment were inhumane
10
Q
Findings of study in detail
A
- Within a short time both were settling into their new roles, with the guards adopting theirs quickly and easily - Within hours of beginning the experiment some guards began to harass prisoners, behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner - others joined in
- The prisoners were taunted with insults and petty orders, they were given pointless and boring tasks to accomplish, and they were generally dehumanized.
- The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behaviour too. They talked about prison issues a great deal of the time. They ‘told tales’ on each other to the guards. They started taking the prison rules very seriously. Some even began siding with the guards against prisoners who did not obey the rules.
- As the prisoners became more dependent, the guards’ contempt for them grew, the prisoners became more submissive.
- One prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming, crying and anger. His thinking became disorganized and he appeared to be entering the early stages of a deep depression. Within the next few days three others also had to leave after showing signs of emotional disorder that could have had lasting consequences. (These were people who had been pronounced stable and normal a short while before).
11
Q
Conclusion of experiment
A
Zimbardo concluded that people quickly conform to social roles, even when the role goes against their moral principles. Furthermore, he concluded that situational factors were largely responsible for the behaviour found, as none of the participants had ever demonstrated these behaviours previously
12
Q
Evaluation of SPE study (x4 - two each)
A
Strengths
- good control over variables
- has good application - Abu Ghraib
Weaknesses
- Lack of research support
- Ethical issues
13
Q
Good control over variables
A
- Zimbardo and his colleagues had some level of control over variables e.g. when selecting participants, Zimbardo and his team chose the most emotionally stable males
- Furthermore, each participant was randomly assigned to either prisoner or guard meaning that there was no experimenter bias - means that if the guards and prisoners behaved very differently but were in those roles through chance, then their behaviour had to be due to the pressures of the situation rather than their own individual personalities
- As this study did have high control over lots of variables it increases the internal validity of the study meaning that we can be more confident in drawing conclusions about conforming to social roles
14
Q
Good application - Abu Ghraib
A
- Zimbardo argues that the same conformity to social role effect that was evident in the SPE was also present in Abu Ghraib, a military prison in Baghdad, Iraq notorious for the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers in 2003-4
- Zimbardo believed that the guards who abused the prisoners were actually victims of the situational factors at that time
- Zimbardo suggests that lack of training, unrelenting boredom and no accountability to higher authorities were present in the SPE and Abu Ghraib
These combined with an opportunity to misuse the power associated with being a ‘guard’ led to the prisoner abuses in both situations
15
Q
Lack of research support
A
- Reicher and Haslam (2006) partially replicated the Stanford prison experiment and was broadcast on BBC TV, so has become known as the BBC Prison Study.
- Their findings were very different to those of Zimbardo and his colleagues. It was the prisoners who eventually took control of the mock prison and subjected the guards to a campaign of harassment and disobedience.
- The researchers used Social Identity Theory (SIT Tajfel 1981) to explain this outcome. They argued that the guards had failed to develop a shared identity as a cohesive group, but the prisoners did. They actively identified themselves as members of a social group that refused to accept the limits of their assigned role as prisoners
