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Zimbardo Prison Experiment

Zimbardo conducted an experiment in 1971 to test whether prison guard brutality was due to personality or social roles. He assigned volunteer students to roles of prisoners or guards in a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University. The guards quickly adopted authoritarian roles, subjecting prisoners to abusive treatment. Within 6 days, the experiment was stopped, as prisoners exhibited signs of extreme stress, anxiety, and depression. The study supported Zimbardo's hypothesis that social roles strongly influence behavior and highlighted the psychological impact of institutional environments.

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235 views2 pages

Zimbardo Prison Experiment

Zimbardo conducted an experiment in 1971 to test whether prison guard brutality was due to personality or social roles. He assigned volunteer students to roles of prisoners or guards in a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University. The guards quickly adopted authoritarian roles, subjecting prisoners to abusive treatment. Within 6 days, the experiment was stopped, as prisoners exhibited signs of extreme stress, anxiety, and depression. The study supported Zimbardo's hypothesis that social roles strongly influence behavior and highlighted the psychological impact of institutional environments.

Uploaded by

Louis P
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Conformity to social roles: Key Study – Zimbardo (1971)

Zimbardo’s prison experiment changed the face of social psychology. He


wanted to see if the brutality found in many American prisons at the
time was a consequence of the personality of the guards or
identification with the social roles in which they were placed.

Outline (A01)

Zimbardo essentially wanted to test dispositional behaviour (behaviour that is attributed to


internal characteristics) versus situational behaviour (behaviour that is attributed to the
situation a person is placed in: for example if the volunteers were prisoners this would greatly
dictate their behaviour). Zimbardo’s hypothesis was based on this situational behaviour.

The 25 most mentally and physically stable volunteers were chosen out of a pool of applicants and
randomly allocated to prisoner or guard, with the prisoners being unexpectedly ‘arrested’ using
the help of local police, where they went through proper protocol and eventually taken to the
‘prison’ – the basement underneath Stanford University in California.

Prisoners were referred to by number and supervised all day by the guards, who were all dressed
the same (to reduce sense of individuality), carried wooden batons and were allowed to make up
the rules.

The guards grew increasingly more aggressive, even using fire extinguishers when the prisoners
rebelled. In addition, prisoners were stripped naked, forced to do physical punishment etc, which
eventually resulted in prisoners exhibiting passive behaviour, depression, crying and anxiety and
some even leaving the study early. Within six days the study was discontinued due to this, but
none of the guards had to recuse themselves from the study.

Evaluation (A03)

Supports the hypothesis Zimbardo presented – that the volunteers would conform to the social
roles they were given, proving situational behaviour did exist. It also supports the importance
that situational factors (such as roles) have on the human mind/actions.

Experiment had good internal validity as it was a controlled observation, so there was control over
the variables. However it cannot be generalized to real life and the guards claimed they were
playing a role, meaning the study has little external validity.

The study wasn’t too useful – while it did highlight some of the issues that may arise in prisons,
little to no change has taken place in US prisons, despite Zimbardo testifying before prison
bodies.
Evaluation (A03) - continued

In terms of ethics, the study was not at all ethical. It caused huge distress to the prisoners (and
possible psychological harm), who were also humiliated and didn’t give consent for a lot of what
went on in the study. This means it did not conform to the BPS ethical guidelines and therefore
can be called unethical.

In conclusion, I don’t believe Zimabrdo’s experiment was worth it, mainly due to the uselessness
of the study (no real change came as a result of it) and the ethical violations the study contained.

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