Zimbardo: Conformity to social roles - Social influence [ A Level Psychology ]

Summary

The 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

00:00

🏫 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.

05:01

🔍 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.

Keywords

💡Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study conducted by psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971 to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power and authority. In the video, this experiment is highlighted as a pivotal example of how individuals adapt their behavior to fit into defined social roles, such as prisoners and guards, leading to aggressive and submissive behaviors respectively. The experiment is infamous for its ethical concerns and early termination due to the extreme distress experienced by participants.

💡Conformity to social roles

Conformity to social roles refers to the phenomenon where individuals adjust their behavior to align with the expectations associated with a particular social position or category. In the context of the video, this concept is central to understanding the behavior of participants in Zimbardo's experiment, who took on aggressive or submissive roles as dictated by their assigned roles as guards or prisoners. The video emphasizes how powerful the situational forces can be in shaping behavior, even among mentally healthy individuals.

💡Social role

A social role is a pattern of behavior that is expected of individuals who occupy a certain social position or belong to a specific social category. The video script uses this term to discuss the expectations placed on individuals based on their roles, such as doctors being empathetic or police officers being authoritative. The Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrated how powerful these social roles can be in influencing behavior, as participants quickly adopted the behaviors expected of their assigned roles.

💡Identification

Identification is a type of conformity where individuals adopt the beliefs and behaviors of a group to which they wish to belong, even if they do not privately agree with them. The video mentions this concept in relation to social roles, suggesting that people conform to socially defined patterns of behavior to feel part of a group, which was a key factor in the participants' behavior in the Stanford Prison Experiment.

💡Situational power

Situational power refers to the influence that a particular environment or context can have on an individual's behavior. The video argues that the prison environment in Zimbardo's experiment had situational power that led to aggressive behavior among the guards and submissive behavior among the prisoners, demonstrating how context can shape behavior more than individual traits.

💡Ethical concerns

Ethical concerns in research refer to the moral implications and responsibilities of conducting studies, particularly regarding the well-being and rights of participants. The video points out the ethical issues in the Stanford Prison Experiment, such as the psychological harm caused to participants and the lack of oversight, which led to the study's premature termination.

💡Demand characteristics

Demand characteristics are cues in a research setting that signal to participants how they should behave. The video suggests that the participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment may have acted according to demand characteristics, conforming to what they believed the researchers expected of them, which could have influenced the observed aggression and submission.

💡Experimental bias

Experimental bias refers to systematic errors introduced into a study due to the influence of the researcher's expectations or actions. The video criticizes Zimbardo for taking on dual roles as both prison superintendent and lead investigator, which likely introduced bias into the experiment and affected the behavior of the participants.

💡Institutional abuse

Institutional abuse occurs when individuals in positions of power within an institution engage in abusive behaviors towards those they are supposed to care for or control. The video connects the findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment to real-life instances of institutional abuse, such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, to illustrate the practical implications of the study's results.

💡Replications

Replications are attempts to repeat a scientific study to validate its findings. The video mentions that due to ethical concerns, replications of the Stanford Prison Experiment are rare. It references a replication conducted for a BBC documentary that found different results, suggesting that the original study's conclusions may not be universally applicable.

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

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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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