Zimbardo's Findings + A03

Question 1

What were Zimbardo’s findings?

Answer 1

• both guards and prisoners settled into their social roles well.
• after some initial rebellion, the dehumanising began from the guards to the prisoners, they became sadistic and taunting towards the prisoners.
• some prisoners sided with the guards against any prisoners who dared to protest.
• de-individualisation began as prisoners started referring to themselves as their numbers instead of their names.
• after 36 hours 1 prisoner had to be taken out due to their crying and fits of rage.

Question 2

Strength - Control over key variables

Answer 2

• emotionally stable participants were recruited and they were randomly allocated to the roles.
• the guards and prisoners only had those roles by chance which means their behaviour was due to the roles and not their personality.
• this control increases the study’s internal validity as it gives us more confidence when drawing conclusions about the effect of social roles to conformity.

Question 3

Limitation - exaggerated the power of the roles

Answer 3

• the power of social roles on conformity may have been exaggerated.
• only a third of the guards behaved brutally and another third applied to the rules fairly and the rest of them supported the prisoners by offering them cigarettes and reinstating privileges.
• this shows that the SPE overstated the view that the guards conformed to the brutal role and minimised any dispositional influences.

Question 4

Limitation - was role playing

Answer 4

• many people suggest the behaviour was mere role playing based on stereotypes of how prisoners of guards are meant to behave.
• one guard based his role on a film character and many of them had never seen a guard or a prisoner so they were acting how they expected guards and prisoners to act.
• this suggests the SPE tells us little on how social roles affect conformity.