Zimbardo And Conformity To Social Roles

Question 1

What are social roles?

Answer 1

The ‘parts’ people play as members of various social groups. These are accompanied by expectations we and others have of what is appropriate behaviour in each role.

Question 2

Does conformity to social roles therefore involve identification or internalisation? Why?

Answer 2

Conformity to social roles therefore involves identification, which is stronger than compliance as it involves both public and private acceptance of behaviours/attitudes.

It is not internalisation as individuals adopt different social roles for different situations. With each social role adopted, behaviour changes to fit the social norms of the situation - and as they move to another situation, their behaviour will change to suit the new social roles.

Question 3

What are social norms?

Answer 3

An expected way for individuals to behave, which will vary from situation to situation.

Question 4

What part do social roles play in teaching individuals to behave?

Answer 4

Individuals know how to behave by looking at social roles other people play in social situations and then conforming to them.
These learned social roles become like internal mental scripts allowing individuals to behave appropriately in different settings.

Question 5

What study illustrates the role of social roles in conformity?

Answer 5

Zimbardo’s prison simulation study

Question 6

Describe the procedure of Zimbardo’s study into the role of social roles in conformity

Who did they select
1
2
3
4

Method:
1
2

Prisoners:
1
2
3
4

Guards:
1
2

Answer 6

Zimbardo’s set up a mock prison experiment - basement of Stanford University. They advertised for students participants volunteered and selected those who were deemed ‘emotionally stable’ after psychological testing.
24 took part

The students were randomly assigned the roles of guards or prisoners
The social roles of the prisoners and guards were strictly divided.

Prisoners:

The ‘prisoners’ were arrested in their home strip searched and blindfolded
Prisoners names became numbers, prison clothing
16 rules they had to follow, which were enforced by the guards who worked in shifts, heavily regulated

Guards:
The guards had their own uniform, with wooden clubs, handcuffs, keys and mirror shades.
They were told they had complete power over the prisoners, for instance even deciding when they could go to the toilet.

Question 7

How many participants took part in Zimbardos study

Answer 7

21!

Question 8

What were the conditions of the prisoners

Answer 8

Prisoners:

The ‘prisoners’ were arrested in their home strip searched and blindfolded
Prisoners names became numbers, prison clothing
16 rules they had to follow, which were enforced by the guards who worked in shifts, heavily regulated

Question 9

What were the conditions for the guards?

Answer 9

Guards:
The guards had their own uniform, with wooden clubs, handcuffs, keys and mirror shades.
They were told they had complete power over the prisoners, for instance even deciding when they could go to the toilet.

Question 10

How did zimbardo select participants from advertising?

Answer 10

They advertised for students participants volunteered and selected those who were deemed ‘emotionally stable’ after psychological testing.
21 took part

Question 11

Where did zimbardos study take place?

Answer 11

Basement of Stanford university

Question 12

How did Zimbardo himself take part?

Answer 12

He was the superintendent

Question 13

Describe the findings of Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment

Answer 13

Guards became increasingly controlling and abused their power and prisoners quickly became increasingly passive and obedient.

Guard become a threat to the prisoners psychological health, study was stopped after 6 days instead of the intended 14.

Within two days, the prisoners rebelled against their harsh treatment by the guards.

After the attempted rebellion, the prisoners become depressed and anxious.
One prisoner was released on the first day because he showed symptoms of psychological disturbance.

One prisoner went on a hunger strike. Instead of being considered a hero, he was shunned by the other prisoners. Guards forced him to eat - dark closet

The guards employed ‘divide-and-conquer’ tactics by playing the prisoners off against each other.
Made them clean toilets

The guards identified more and more closely with their role. Their behaviour become more brutal and aggressive, with some of them appearing to enjoy the power they had over the prisoners.

Question 14

What conclusions about the role of social role in conformity can be drawn from the study?
1
2
3

Answer 14

Guards, prisoners all conformed to their social roles within the prison.
- simulation revealed the power of the situation to influence people’s behaviour.
Evil place > good people
Situation hypothesis > disposition hypothesis. (as some people never shown such behaviour)

People can very easily identify with social roles, even if it overrides individual meal beliefs

Question 15

What sampling technique did Zimbardo use?

Answer 15

Volunteer sampling

Question 16

How many days was the study intended to go on for, and how many days did it actually last?

Answer 16

The study was stopped after 6 days instead of the intended 14.

Question 17

After how many days did the prisoners start to rebel against their harsh treatment by the guards?

Answer 17

Within two days of the start of the experiment, that prisoners rebelled.

Question 18

How many prisoners were released on the first days and why?

Answer 18

1 prisoner was released on the first day because he showed symptoms of psychological disturbance.

Question 19

Evaluation of Zimbardo
S
L
L
L

Answer 19

S: Zimbardo controlled variables.
L: Other Research does not support findings
L: Ethical issues
L: Zimbardo exaggerated situational hypothesis over dispositional hypothesis

Question 20

Evaluation of Zimbardo
Not supported by other research

Answer 20

E:In one study, televised on BBC it was the prisoners who eventually took control of the mock prison and actually the guards did not want to enforce any form of power on the prisoners
The researchers argued that the prisoners actively identified themselves as members of a social group that refused their assigned social role as prisoners
E: Zimbardos study concluded that that conforming to social roles comes easily/naturally, however in this study they didn’t even conform at all
L:This indicates that Zimbardo’s experiment is not reliable as the same results have not been found

Question 21

Evaluation of Zimbardo
Zimbardo exaggerated his results.

Answer 21

E: a minority (1/3) of guards were brutal and controlling, therefore 2/3 weren’t.
The remaining guards helped the prisoners or were fair to the prisoners
E: Shows that not all guards were affected by the situational variables and perhaps the conforming to social roles is down to dispositional factors interests (>).
Zimbardo concluded that situational hypothesis was greater than disposituonal however his own study shows this was not the case for the majority
L: This is a limitation as Zimbardos results may not be supported by his study, reducing its credibility .

Question 22

Evaluation of Zimbardo
Strength Controlled variables

Answer 22

P A strength of Zimbardo’s
study is that there was some good control over variables
E For example, Zimbardo controlled for emotional stability because all participants were rated as emotionally stable before the experiment and randomly assigned to either the prisoner or guard group
E This helped to rule out individual differences as an explanation of group differences (guards vs. prisoners) Thus, any differences in behaviour are due to social roles, not individual differences
L This increases the validity of the study as it increases our confidence in the cause and effect relationship between social roles and behaviour.

Question 23

Evaluation of Zimbardo
Ethical issues

Answer 23

P: limitation is that there were ethical issues:
E: Prisoners of the study were not protected from harm as the guards behaviour made them psychologically and physically unwell and even became depressed and anxious towards the end of the 6 days.
L: this is a limitation as the study has ethical issues
However
Zimbardo’s study was considered ethical as it followed the guidelines of the Stanford University Ethics committee that had approved it. There was, for example, no deception as all participants were told in advance their rights and aims, e.g right to withdraw
He did also carry out debriefing sessions for several years afterwards
Strength as Zimbardo recognised and tried to reduce harm.