Outline and evaluate Zimbardos research into conformity to social roles

(12 marks)
The Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney et al., 1973) was intended to discover
what would happen to ordinary people if they were placed in a simulated prison
environment split into guards and prisoners and how they would behave in
their new social roles. Zimbardo and his associates set out the study in the
aftermath of the Attica prison riot, which took place at the Attica Correctional
Facility in Attica, New York on September 13, 1971. This conflict would leave
twenty-one inmates and nine guards dead. The riot had been triggered by racism
and inhumane treatment by authority so the SPE was intended to observe the
interaction between two groups in the absence of an authority figure.
A mock prison was set up in the psychology department basement of Stanford
University in California, US. Male volunteers were interviewed and the 24 most
stable, psychologically and physically, were randomly assigned to either play the
role of prisoner or guard. The prisoners were treated as if they were real
criminals: arrested at home, deloused and given a uniform and ID number, which
would become their new identity to begin the deindividuation process. Prisoners
had certain rights such as three meals a day and supervised toilet trips.
Meanwhile, the guards were also given uniforms, clubs, and whistles and wore
reflective sunglasses (to prevent eye contact). Zimbardo oversaw the experiment
under the role of Prison Superintendent, the study was meant to last two weeks.
However, even within the first few days it became clear that in some cases
participants were acting as if they had forgotten that they were only acting and
that this was only a psychological study. The guards exhibited increasingly
abusive behaviour, waking them in the night to clean toilets and other degrading
activities. Even when the participants were not aware of the fact that they were
being observed they still completely conformed to their role as prisoner or guard
one prisoner asked for parole when they wanted to leave the experiment. Five
prisoners were released early due to their extreme reactions (e.g. crying, rage
and anxiety) symptoms appearing after just 2 days. This continued and the
study was terminated after just 6 days following the intervention of postgraduate
student Christina Maslach, who reminded Zimbardo that this was a psychological
study and, as such, did not justify the abuse being meted out to participants. The
study was effective in showing that both the prisoners and guards conformed to
their roles; the guards became increasingly cruel and the prisoners became
increasingly passive.
Zimbardo believed that the guards behaviour was an automatic consequence of
them embracing their role, which meant that they didn't realise what they were
doing was wrong. However, it can be argued that the SPE contradicted this, as
whilst there were guards who were fully sadistic, there were also good guards.
These guards did not degrade or harass the prisoners and some even did small
favours for them. Haslam and Reicher (2012) would argue that if there was no
evidence of an entirely unanimous behaviour in the guards, this shows that they
chose how to behave, rather than blindly conforming to their social roles.
Banuazizi and Movahedi (1975) argued that guards and prisoners was not due to
prison environment, but rather it was a response to powerful demand
characteristics in the experiment situation itself. This refers to the fact that the
participants may be able to guess what the experimenters expect or how they

want the participants to act because of characteristics of the study. Banuazizi

and Movahedi presented the details of the study to a group of students who had
not heard of it before and discovered that a large majority of the students
correctly guessed what the results of the experiment are. This could suggest that
the participants were acting how they thought that the experimenters wanted
them to.
It has been said that the SPE lacked population validity. The study sample
comprised of a small number of American males in the 1970s, meaning that the
findings cannot be applied to female prisons or those in other countries. America
is an individualist culture, which naturally leads to lower conformity rates,
whereas collectivist cultures in countries like Japan may have shown different
results if the SPE was conducted there as there is a higher emphasis on the
group and therefore higher rates of conformity.
A popular criticism of the SPE is that it can be seen as immoral even if technically
the Stanford University ethics committee approved of it; they had the chance to
prevent the study but saw that it met the guidelines. For example, there was no
deception, with all participants being told in advance that many of their usual
rights would be suspended. However, there was a clear lack of fully informed
consent by participants as Zimbardo himself did not know what would happen in
the experiment (it was unpredictable). Therefore, this meant that the participants
were not protected from psychological harm, emotional distress and humiliation.
It was not possible to predict this before the study was conducted, which
suggests that had there been a deeper review of the study beforehand,
Zimbardo could have made it more ethical.
This is why Zimbardos research has had a great impact on many prisons today
and his findings have helped provide insight into how conformity can explain
many modern day atrocities. Zimbardos conclusion from the SPE was that
people exhibit sadistic behaviour because they conform unthinkingly to the roles
that authorities prescribe without the need for specific orders. The brutality of
the guards, he explains, was a natural consequence of being allocated of guard
and therefore asserting the perceived power associated with the role. This can be
used to explain what happened at Abu Ghraib, a military prison in Iraq known for
the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers in 2003 and 2004.
Zimbardo believed that their behaviour was explainable, although not justifiable;
the abuse was as a result of situational factors such as lack of training, boredom
and no accountability to higher authority factors present in both the SPE and
Abu Ghraib.