1.

What was the AMRC

(aim...method..) of Zimbardo’s
study?
2. What type of research was his
study? How do we know this?
3. What are the variables in the
study?
4. What does his research tell us
about human behaviour in relation
to conformity?
5. Any ethical issues?
Conformity to Social Roles
Lesson Outcomes
I can outline Zimbardo’s study
I can apply my knowledge of Zimbardo’s study to
scenarios
I can evaluate his research considering strengths,
weaknesses as well as implication of his results.
 Aim
To examine whether people would
Findings
conform to the social roles of prisoner
or guard when placed in a mock prison
environment

Method

Conclusion

people will readily confirm To the

social roles they are expected To play
especially if the roles are as strongly
stereotyped e.g prison grauds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZwfNs1pqG0
Which two of the following statements about
Zimbardo’s prison study are correct?

A. Both guards and prisoners conformed to their

social role
B. Only guards conformed to their social role
C. The prisoners were unaffected by their
experiences
D. The guards became tyrannical and abusive
towards the prisoners
E. Increasing the number of guards had a negative
effect on morale.
 A02 – Apply It!!
Rob’s dad has just come back from
a business meeting in Scotland. He
flew there and back and is
complaining about how he was
treated during the security
screening at his local airport. He
describes the staff as ‘rude’ and
‘power craze’ and wonders if they
only employ rude and aggressive
people.
Using your knowledge of research into
conformity to social roles, explain why the
security staff might be behaving in the way
described by Rob’s dad.( 4 marks)
 A02 – Apply It!!
Rob’s dad has just come back from
a business meeting in Scotland. He
flew there and back and is
complaining about how he was
treated during the security
screening at his local airport. He
describes the staff as ‘rude’ and
‘power craze’ and wonders if they
only employ rude and aggressive
people.
Using your knowledge of research into
conformity to social roles, explain why the
security staff might be behaving in the way
described by Rob’s dad.( 4 marks)
Zimbardo’s SPE found that male
student volunteers quickly
conformed to the role they
associated with a prison guard,
therefore it is likely that the
people employed on security at
the airport might have done
the same. In the SPE, as they
settled into their role the
guards grew increasingly
tyrannical and abusive towards
the prisoners. This is consistent
with the ‘rude and aggressive’
behaviour shown by the
security staff as described by
Rob’s dad.
Over to you…
 Evaluation Zimbardo’s study…
1. Can the results be applied to other settings (does it have ecological
validity)? Why?

2. Can the results be applied to other populations (population validity)?

Why?
Consider Abu Ghraib military prison

3. Zimbardo’s experiment aimed to look at conformity to social roles; did it do

this? Remember that the main threats to internal validity (if the research is
testing what it is supposed to) are demand characteristics and extraneous
variables.

3. Zimbardo’s research has been accused of being unethical. Explain what

aspects of the study might have broken the following ethical guidelines:
– Deception:
– Informed consent: 
– Right to withdraw:
– Protection of participants:
 Use the evidence below to decide whether
Zimbardo was correct to conclude that
‘people will blindly conform to their social
role’…
TYPES OF GUARDS
• By the fifth day, a new relationship had emerged
between prisoners and guards. The guards now fell into
their job more easily – a job which at times was boring
and at times was interesting.
• There were three types of guards. First, there were
tough but fair guards who followed prison rules.
Second, there were "good guys" who did little favors for
the prisoners and never punished them. And finally,
about a third of the guards were hostile, arbitrary, and
inventive in their forms of prisoner humiliation. These
guards appeared to thoroughly enjoy the power they
wielded, yet none of our preliminary personality tests
were able to predict this behavior.
 Were demand characteristics an issue?
• The only prisoner who did not want to speak to the priest was Prisoner #819,
who was feeling sick, had refused to eat, and wanted to see a doctor rather
than a priest. Eventually he was persuaded to come out of his cell and talk to
the priest and superintendent so we could see what kind of a doctor he
needed. While talking to us, he broke down and began to cry hysterically, just
as had the other two boys we released earlier. I took the chain off his foot, the
cap off his head, and told him to go and rest in a room that was adjacent to the
prison yard. I said that I would get him some food and then take him to see a
doctor… I suggested we leave, but he refused. Through his tears, he said he
could not leave because the others had labeled him a bad prisoner. Even
though he was feeling sick, he wanted to go back and prove he was not a bad
prisoner. At that point I said, "Listen, you are not #819. You are [his name], and
my name is Dr. Zimbardo. I am a psychologist, not a prison superintendent, and
this is not a real prison. This is just an experiment, and those are students, not
prisoners, just like you. Let's go.” He stopped crying suddenly, looked up at me
like a small child awakened from a nightmare, and replied, "Okay, let's go.”
• Two months after the study, here is the reaction of prisoner #416, our would-
be hero who was placed in solitary confinement for several hours: "I began to
feel that I was losing my identity, that the person that I called Clay, the person
who put me in this place, the person who volunteered to go into this prison –
because it was a prison to me; it still is a prison to me. I don't regard it as an
experiment or a simulation because it was a prison run by psychologists
instead of run by the state. I began to feel that identity, the person that I was
that had decided to go to prison was distant from me – was remote until finally
I wasn't that, I was 416. I was really my number."
Point… Demand characteristics may have affected the SPE

Evidence

Explanation
 ne p ro b le m was that However, Haslam & Reicher argue that For example Banuazizi &
O ded that Movahedi found that
d o co n c lu the guards chose how to behave, for
Zimbar atically & students unfamiliar with the
le a u to m example some guards were fair and
peop o t he their SPE correctly guessed its
fo rm t others even helped the prisoners in
blindly con purpose and also accurately
social role. small ways.
predicted the behaviour of
Z im bardo did
the inte rn al va lid ity of Zimbardo’s st o admit tha the prisoners and guards.
Th is means
ened by the
p p ed earlie t the stud
hav e bee n th re at
d r t ha n i y should
research may ti cs ,w hic h in turn i s t re ss e x t w as d u e have bee
an d ch a ract er is p erienced by t to t he psycho n
presence of dem f hi s fi nd ing s. t h a t n o -one suffe h e p lo gic
red nega articipants but cla al
lizability o
threatens the genera This stud tively i
yh imed
considera ighlights the impo n the long term.
tion in re rtance of
The study was approved by the ethics committee search. ethical
at Stanford university and the participants were Furtherm
ore
informed that many of their rights would be suggest t Zimbardos may b
removed during the study. p hat auto e wrong
owerful r atic conf m
o t
oles resu orming t
Haslam & Reicher found in their BBC lts in sad o
istic beha
study that prisoners worked collectively This implies that the norm viour.
to challenge the authority of the guards
s and values of a
group will influence how th
and the guards failed to identify with e members of that
group behave and does n
their authoritative role so didn’t impose ot need to be mindless
and tyrannical as suggeste
their authority on the prisoners. d by Zimbardo. that
bardo may
Another issue with the SPE is A third issue is the This suggests that Zim
is claim that
that the situation participants
controversial nature of the have been wrong in h
r was an
found themselves in may have
SPE even though it was the guards behaviou
e of the
resulted in demand
conducted ethically. automatic consequenc
.
situation they were in
characteristics.