Essay
Explain Zimbardo's research into conformity to social roles. (16)
- Module
- Social Influence
- Institution
- AQA
16/16 Explain Zimbardo's research into conformity to social roles
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“Explain Zimbardo’s research into conformity to social roles.”One type of conformity that may occur is where individuals conform to perceived social
roles. Social roles are defined as the parts that people play as members of various social
roles, which are accompanied by expectations of the behaviours associated with such roles.
Phillip Zimbardo was interested in measuring the extent to which conformity to social roles
controls our behaviour, and did so by conducting the Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo
set up a mock prison in the basement of the psychology department in Stanford university,
obtaining a sample of 21 American men deemed psychologically healthy and randomly
assigning them to the role of prisoner or guard. Guards were given batons and sunglasses,
whereas prisoners were reduced to a number as their identity and wore a dress and a cap.
This was done in an attempt to deindividuate the participants and reduce their personal
identity, to increase the chance that they will conform to social roles.
Guards responded enthusiastically to the situation, taking up their social roles with vigor.
They treated the prisoners harshly and employed certain tactics to demonstrate and establish
the position of authority that they had over the prisoners, such as harassing them and
conducting frequent headcounts. The prisoners rebelled and rioted, but after this failed,
became submissive, anxious, meek and depressed. Three prisoners were released on account
of psychological disturbance, and as the guards identified more and more closely with their
social roles, Zimbardo ended the study after 6 days rather than the intended 14. He
concluded that social roles appear to have a large effect on individual behaviour and
conformity to social roles in situations where they are clearly established occurs with ease.
One strength of Zimbardo’s prison experiment is that the researchers had high control over
experimental variables. By assessing the participants to be psychologically healthy alongside
randomly assigning them the role of prisoner and guard, Zimbardo evenly distributed
disposition over the experimental conditions. Therefore, the findings can be attributed to
social roles rather than personality due to this control, and the internal validity of the
research as a whole was increased by such an act.
However, despite this, Zimbardo’s research has been critisised for being artificial. It has been
suggested that the participants were merely play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to
a social role, based on stereotypes of how they expected prisoners and guards to behave. This
could explain why the prisoners rioted- they thought this was what real prisoners did. One
guard was reported to base his harsh behaviour on a character from Cool Hand Luke.
Therefore, the findings of the research may tell us very little about conformity to social roles
and rather demonstrate the effect of stereotypes.
This accusation has been contested, however. It has been reported that the participants did
behave as if they were in a real prison, with over 90% of the conversations being about prison
life, suggesting that the participants were fully immersed within the situation. One prisoner
reported that it was believed the prison was a real prison, but rather run by psychologists
than the state. Therefore, this suggests that the SPE was able to successfully replicate the
roles of prisons and guards in a situation that generated valid results and thus maintained
high internal validity.
Despite this, Zimbardo’s conclusions on what the study demonstrated may be flawed. He
may have over-exaggerated the effect that social roles have towards explaining behaviour.
For instance, only 1/3rd of the guards acted in a brutal manner, with the others actively
sympathising with the prisoners and offering them cigarettes. This suggests that the
dispositional influence of personality may be having a greater effect on conformity rather
than the authority of the social roles, and the effect of situational influences have been over-
emphasised.
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