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Zimbardo and the Lucifer effect - Coggle Diagram
Zimbardo and the Lucifer effect
Aims of the study
To investigate influence of situational factors to conforming to social roles
Social roles - the parts people play as members of a social group, which meet the expectations of that situation
Conformity to social roles involves identification, which is stronger than compliance
Conformity to social roles isn't as strong as internalisation, as individuals adopt different social rules for different situations, and only when in those situations
Zimbardo's personal interest
Was paid to look into this by the military
Came after several prison riots in america
Was interested to find out if prison guards were brutal and sadistic due to uneducated and insensitive evil personalities or if behaviour was a product of environment
AO1 of the study
Location
Mock prison in the basement of stanford
Small, tiny area
Participants
24 psychologically healthy men
Random allocation of prisoner or guard
Prisoners
Deloused
Strip searched
Dressed in uniform
Given an identity number
Fake arrested the day before they were told it would start
Guards
Given mirrored sunglasses for deindividuation
Given Billy clubs
Told to control prisoners but not use physical violence
Haney et al, 1973
Evaluation
Lack of Validity
Artificial situation, no real crimes committed or real guards
Could have guess study aim and responded to demand characteristics
Banuazizi and Mohadevi (1975) argued that participants were just acting out roles
Results cannot be generalised
Exaggerated social influences
2/3 guards did not abuse their power
Zimbardo's conclusion could not explain individual differences
Guards may have been following instructions
Felt pressured to be a 'good participant'
Realism
Sometimes unaware that they were being watched but still conformed
One asked for 'parole' not to 'leave'
90% of conversations were about prison
Genuine psychological horror
Ethical issues
When Zimbardo played superintendent he lost objectivity
He should have stopped the study early
Caused physical and psychological harm
Participant should have been given the right to withdraw
Lack of fully informed consent
Real world applications
Helped understand the role of situational factors
Evil situations can lead apparently normal people to evil action (Abu Ghraib)
It may be possible to prevent future events
Lack of research support
Reicher and Haslan (2006) recreated the experiment
They had different results, the prisoners turned on the guards
Zimbardo said conforming was natural but many did not conform
1/3 guards tried to help prisoners
Validity
Controllable environment (lab experiment)
Stimulated environment (control over confounding variables)
Randomly assigned roles controls participant values
Results
Participants conformed to social roles quickly
Guards became a threat to prisoner's health and mental wellbeing
Prisoners became withdrawn and submissive, showing signs of early onset depression and psychological disturbance
Was meant to last 2 weeks but was called off after 2 days
Revealed the power of environment to influence behaviour