Zimbardo's SPE

Question 1

Aim

Answer 1

1n 1973 Zimbardo wanted to investigate how people would conform to social roles of guard and a prisoner

Question 2

Procedure

Answer 2

He converted the basement of Stanford university’s psych building into a prison mock ward.
He advertised for students to play the roles for 2 weeks.
PRISONERS- were issued uniforms
- heads were shaved
- addressed by their numbers only
- fingerprinted, photographed and stripped.
GUARDS- wore khaki uniforms.
- sunglasses to avoid eye contact
-and no physical violence was allowed.

Question 3

Findings

Answer 3

Zimbardo found that the participants adopted their roles quickly.
prisoners adopted prison-like behaviour. e.g. snitching on other prisoners to please guards.
guards became brutal and violent by harming prisoners in aggressive ways but they later reported they enjoyed doing so because they were in power.
due to this the experiment only lasted for 6 days because Zimbardo realised what he was doing was wrong.

Question 4

Strengths

Question 5

Weaknesses