Zimbardo: Conformity to social roles - Social influence [ A Level Psychology ]
Summary
TLDRThe Stanford Prison Experiment, led by Philip Zimbardo, examined how individuals adopted aggressive or submissive behaviors when assigned social roles of prisoners or guards. Despite initial chaos, the study suggested that situational factors, not individual traits, drove behavior. However, ethical issues and Zimbardo's dual role as both prison superintendent and lead investigator raised concerns about experimental bias. The experiment was ended early due to the significant distress it caused participants, highlighting the need for ethical research practices.
Takeaways
- 🏫 Zimbardo's Prison Experiment is infamous for exploring the psychological effects of social roles in a prison environment, leading to aggressive behavior among guards and submissiveness among prisoners.
- 🧠 The experiment suggests that individuals adapt their behavior to fit into the defined social roles of their environment, even if it means acting against their nature.
- 👨⚕️ Zimbardo himself became immersed in his role as prison superintendent, prioritizing the prison's operation over participant well-being, highlighting the power of role immersion.
- 📚 The concept of 'social role' refers to the pattern of behavior expected from individuals in certain social positions, such as doctors, teachers, or police officers.
- 🔑 The experiment aimed to test whether typical, mentally healthy individuals would conform to aggressive and submissive social roles when placed in a prison setting.
- 🚨 The experiment was ended prematurely due to the extreme distress experienced by participants, indicating the profound impact of the environment on behavior.
- 🔍 Positive evaluations of the study include its methodological control and practical applications in understanding institutional abuse, such as the Abu Ghraib scandal.
- 🚨 Criticisms highlight ethical concerns, experimental bias due to Zimbardo's dual role, and the influence of researcher instructions on participant behavior.
- 📈 The experiment's findings have been influential in military and law enforcement training to prevent abuse, demonstrating its real-world impact.
- ⚖️ The Stanford Prison Experiment raises critical questions about the ethics of psychological research and the importance of safeguarding participant welfare.
Q & A
What was the main purpose of Zimbardo's Prison Experiment?
-The main purpose of Zimbardo's Prison Experiment was to investigate how typical mentally healthy people would conform to the social roles of guards and prisoners, potentially leading to aggressive behavior in the guards and submissive behavior in the prisoners.
Where was Zimbardo's Prison Experiment conducted?
-Zimbardo's Prison Experiment was conducted in the basement of Stanford University.
How were the participants in the experiment selected and assigned roles?
-The participants were carefully selected through psychological testing to ensure mental stability, and then randomly assigned to be either prisoners or guards to reduce the likelihood of participant variables.
What were the unexpected results of the experiment?
-The experiment resulted in both prisoners and guards quickly losing their individual identities and adopting the social roles assigned to them. The guards became dominant and aggressive, while the prisoners initially resisted but ultimately became submissive, leading to significant distress and early release of some participants.
What was Zimbardo's role in the experiment?
-Zimbardo played the role of Chief Prison Superintendent and Lead Investigator in the experiment.
Why was the experiment ended early?
-The experiment was ended early after only six days due to the extreme responses of both prisoners and guards, including mental breakdowns among the prisoners.
What were some of the ethical concerns raised about the experiment?
-Ethical concerns included the suffering and harm experienced by the participants, the dual role of Zimbardo as both prison superintendent and lead investigator, and the direct instruction to guards to be highly aggressive, which may have influenced the results.
How has the Stanford Prison Experiment been applied in real-life settings?
-The findings have been practically applied to understand real-life examples of institutional abuse, such as the American Military prison of Abu Ghraib, and are taught in military and law enforcement settings to reduce the likelihood of further abuse.
What was the role of social roles in the observed aggression in the experiment?
-The experiment suggested that the situational power of the prison environment could lead otherwise mentally healthy individuals to adopt social roles that resulted in highly aggressive behaviors.
What are some criticisms of Zimbardo's Prison Experiment?
-Criticisms include the experimental bias due to Zimbardo's dual role, the influence of the researcher's presence on participant behavior, and the recent analysis suggesting that researchers directly instructed guards to be aggressive, which challenges the conclusion that aggression was due to social role adaptation.
What is the significance of Zimbardo's Prison Experiment in the field of psychology?
-The experiment is significant as it demonstrates the power of situational factors in influencing behavior and highlights the importance of ethical safeguards in psychological research.
Outlines
🏫 Zimbardo's Prison Experiment
The first paragraph introduces Zimbardo's infamous Prison Experiment, which aimed to investigate the causes of prison violence. Conducted in the basement of Stanford University, the study randomly assigned college-age males to roles of either prison inmates or officers. The experiment quickly descended into chaos, with the 'guards' becoming aggressive and the 'prisoners' submissive. Zimbardo argued that the environment and social roles, rather than individual personalities, led to this behavior. The paragraph also mentions the Psych Boost app, which offers educational tools like flashcards and quizzes, and the concept of social roles, defined as expected behaviors for individuals in certain social positions.
🔍 Evaluation of Zimbardo's Study
The second paragraph delves into the evaluation of Zimbardo's study, highlighting both its positive contributions and criticisms. On the positive side, the study's methodology was praised for its careful selection and random assignment of participants, which helped control for individual variables. The findings have been applied to understand real-life instances of institutional abuse, such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. However, the paragraph also discusses ethical concerns and criticisms. A replication by Reicher and Haslam for a BBC documentary showed different results, suggesting that social roles might have less influence on behavior than initially thought. The paragraph criticizes Zimbardo's dual role in the study, which may have introduced experimental bias, and recent analyses that suggest the guards were directly instructed to be aggressive, casting doubt on the original conclusions. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the importance of ethical safeguards in research.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Stanford Prison Experiment
💡Conformity to social roles
💡Social role
💡Identification
💡Situational power
💡Ethical concerns
💡Demand characteristics
💡Experimental bias
💡Institutional abuse
💡Replications
Highlights
Zimbardo's Prison Experiment is infamous for investigating the causes of prison violence.
The experiment took place in the basement of Stanford University.
Zimbardo assigned roles randomly to test subjects, simulating a prison environment.
The results showed rapid adaptation to social roles, leading to chaos.
Guards became dominant and aggressive, while prisoners became submissive.
Zimbardo himself was influenced by his role as prison superintendent.
The experiment demonstrated conformity to social roles can significantly alter behavior.
The concept of social roles was defined as expected behaviors for certain positions.
Examples of social roles include doctor, teacher, and police officer, each with stereotypical behaviors.
Zimbardo argued that situational factors, not disposition, led to aggression in prisons.
The Stanford Prison Experiment aimed to see if normal people would conform to aggressive social roles.
Participants were subjected to realistic prison conditions, including arrests and uniforms.
Guards were instructed to manage without violence, yet some became sadistically aggressive.
The study was ended early due to the extreme distress experienced by participants.
Zimbardo claimed the prison environment's situational power led to aggressive behavior.
The experiment has been applied to understand real-life institutional abuses, like Abu Ghraib.
Critics argue the study had ethical issues and cannot be replicated.
A replication attempt showed participants acted more according to their personalities.
Zimbardo's dual role likely caused experimental bias, influencing participant behavior.
Recent analysis suggests researchers directed guards to be aggressive, invalidating the study's conclusion.
The experiment caused significant harm to participants, raising ethical concerns.
The study emphasizes the need for ethical safeguards in psychological research.
Transcripts
there are few psychology studies as
famous or perhaps I should say as
Infamous as zimbardo's Prison Experiment
investigating the causes of prison
violence in the basement of Stanford
University he took on the role of prison
intendent randomly assigning half a
group of college age males to be prison
inmates while the other half became
prison officers the results absolute
chaos no surprise right but zimbardo
argued this was evidence of previously
independent individuals adap their
behavior to fit into the defined social
roles of the prison environment the
prison officers becoming dominant and
aggressive and the prisoners well at
first attempting to resist ultimately
becoming submissive zimbardo claimed
that even he was taken over by his need
to perform the role of prison
superintendent prioritizing the need to
run his prison over the well-being of
his participants the psych boost app now
has three features flashcards multiple
choice quizzes and see if you can work
out the key term from his definition
with the key term tester try paper one
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teaching slides and more Conformity to
social roles as this video is
fundamentally about Conformity to social
roles we should Define a social role a
commonly accepted definition is a
socially defined pattern of behavior
Behavior that's expected of persons who
occupy a certain social position or
belong to a particular social category
it might be helpful to pause a moment
here and consider some social positions
and what are expected socially defined
patterns of behavior for people in those
roles someone can have the social role
of doctor teacher police officer
politician student artist prisoner or
correctional officer what stereotypical
behaviors would you expect of people in
these
roles well you would likely expect the
doctor to be empathetic and caring the
teacher to be knowledgeable and
communicative the police officer to be
confident and act with authority the
politician to be well let's say
persuasive and charismatic ideally the
student should be curious and
hardworking an artist unconventional and
passionate a prisoner submissive or
potentially dangerous and finally would
expect a correction officer to be tough
uncaring and domineering of course not
all people in those roles act this way
but they are the stereotypical mental
images we have when considering those
roles in the previous video we discussed
three types of Conformity the
identification type of Conformity is
where membership of a group is valued
and even if we don't privately agree
with the beliefs and behaviors of the
group we adopt them publicly to feel
part of the group you can probably see
how that type of Conformity links to
social roles people like to have a sense
of social identity and by conforming to
the socially defined pattern of
behaviors linked to a social role we can
Define ourselves as members Philip
zimbardo F the reason for the intense
levels of gression in the American
prison system was due not to
dispositional reasons so not due to
Bringing together naturally aggressive
prisoners and prison
officers instead he claimed aggression
was situational the environment of the
prison itself led to people acting
according to expected social roles that
promoted abuse
in order to study Conformity to social
roles in a prison setting zimbardo
created a mock prison in the basement of
Stanford University his aim was to see
if typical mentally healthy people would
conform to the social roles of gods so
become aggressive and the social roles
of prisoners so
submissive zimbardo's study is typically
referred to as the Stanford Prison
Experiment and abbreviated to the SP
zimbardo's prison study you can see here
the original advert ask for volunteers
for a 7 to 14-day study on Prison life
for $15 a day applicants were given
psychological testing to ensure mental
stability and ultimately 24 were
selected importantly the participants
were randomly assigned to be prisoners
or guards to reduce the likelihood of
participan variables the prisoner's
experiences included being unexpectedly
arrested at home by real police officers
being booked deloused and given a basic
prison uniform with their assigned ID
number on it the prisoners had a list of
rules to follow but the prisoners also
had rights like free meals a day
supervised toilet trips and visits from
family each cell contained fre prisoners
to give the guards an appearance of
authority they were given uniforms at
Club whistles and
sunglasses their instruction was to
manage the prison without resorting to
violence unlike the Prisoners the guards
returned home at the end of their 8 hour
shift in the study zimbardo played the
part of Chief prison super intendent and
Lead investigator a point I return to in
the evaluations zimbardo found that both
prisoners and guards quickly lost their
individual identities and took on the
social roles of prisoner or guard the
prisoners initially attempted to resist
they barricaded themselves in their
cells using their bedding to block the
cell doors the gods quickly crushed the
reion and the prisoners became passive
as the experiment progressed the
prisoners showed significant distress to
the point that a number of the prisoners
were released early After experiencing
mental
breakdowns the guards became ative and
some of them became sadistically
aggressive due to the extreme responses
of the prisoners and guards after 6 days
the study was ended early zimbardo
claimed that his study demonstrates that
the situational power of the prison
environment can make otherwise mentally
healthy individuals act out social roles
that lead them to highly aggressive
behaviors Zim's prison study
evaluations let's start with some
positive of evaluations we can praise
the sb's methodology in terms of the
initial setup the participants were
carefully selected suggesting none of
the participants were naturally highly
aggressive and the participants were
randomly assigned to be prisoners or
guards this high level of control
reduced the likelihood of participant
variables we can also say that the
findings of the Stanford Prison
Experiment have been practically applied
to understand real life examples of
institutional abuse one famous example
is the American Military prison of Abu
grabe in this prison an environment of
few rules and little oversight Iraqi
detainees were tortured sexually abused
and even killed by American Army
Personnel the world found out about this
abuse due to the leaking of photographs
of military personnel posing for selfies
next to the
victims after careful consideration I've
decided not to show those pictures
uncensered however I do think they are
historically important and if you'd like
to see them they're on the Wikipedia
page I've Linked In the video
description and the comments zimbardo
even appeared as an expert witness of
the subsequent trial the findings of the
stford prison experiment are taught in
Military and law enforcement settings in
an attempt to reduce the likelihood of
further
abusers now I'm going to move into
criticisms firstly due to ethical
concerns replications are rare richel
and hlin carried out one of the few
attempts at a replication for a BBC
documentary with more safeguards I've
linked to a video video by the open
University that uses original footage of
the documentary and includes interviews
with the researchers I recommend you
watch that video after this but to
summarize their findings the
participants did not conform to social
roles they acted more in line with their
personalities and the guards willingly
gave up their powerful
positions in fact in the Stanford Prison
Experiment only one third of the guards
actually showed sadistic aggression the
other guards were generally passive
these results suggest that social roles
have a limited influence on Behavior so
you might be wondering what caused the
extreme aggression that was observed in
the Stanford Prison Experiment well a
serious criticism of Zim's work is he
took on the Dual role of prison
superintendent and Lead investigator
which likely led to experimental bias
the presence of zimbardo likely
influenced the behavior of the
participants the prison superintendent
interacting with the participants really
should have been someone who didn't know
the aims of the experiment the
participants likely worked out the aims
of the study and acted according to
demand characteristics acting in a way
they thought zimbardo wanted them to
behave and it actually gets worse than
this recent analysis of the records of
the Stanford Prison Experiment have
found that zimbardo and the other
researchers directly instructed the
guards to be highly aggressive meaning
the conclusion that the guards were
aggressive due to adapting to social
roles is likely invalid our final
evaluation is likely the one that you
most expected the participants
especially the prisoners really suffered
harm as a consequence of taking part in
this experiment while the study was
called to a stop after 6 days it was
continued far beyond the point that the
participants show significant distress
and many of the prisoners felt they had
no right to withdraw if nothing else
Zim's work demonstrates the importance
of ensuring studies are conducted with
ethical safeguards in place I want to
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Boost video
関連動画をさらに表示
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