Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo's Research

Control- Zimbardo and his team held a large amount of control over the variables of the study. The selection process of participants: emotionally stable people selected and randomly assigned role of prisoner or guard, this helps rule out any individual differences that may affect the findings. If guards and prisoners behaved very differently but were put in those roles by chance it indicates that the behaviour must have been due to the pressure of the situation.

Lack of realism- participants play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to the roles. Based on stereotypes of prisoners and guards. One of the guards claimed he based his role on character from film Cold Hand Luke. However, Zimbardo argued against this, providing evidence that 90% of prisoner conversations were based on prison life- giving study high degree of internal validity.

Role of dis-positional influences- Zimbardo minimized the role of dis-positional influences/personality factors. Only a minority of the guards behaved in a brutal manner, the others were keen on applying the rules fairly with some actively helping and supporting prisoners. Suggests conclusion may be over-stated.

Lack of research support- partial replication of study. BBC prison study found very different findings. Prisoners took control of the mock prison and subjected guards to harassment and abuse. Guards failed to develop cohesive social identity, but prisoners did.

Ethical issues- some suffered from psychological harm. When one prisoner was desperate to be released, rather than acting as psychologist Zimbardo acted as superintendent worried about the running of his prison rather than as a researcher with responsibilities.

	Created by Elizabeth Hallam over 6 years ago

All the evaluation for the topic of social influence.