SOCIAL INFLUENCE Conforming to Social Roles

What makes people evil? Discuss and mindmap as a group

Dispositional vs Situational Bad Apples? - Dispositional Bad Barrels? - Situational

“All the worlds a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits, and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.” William Shakespeare Discuss the image and text above. What do these both suggest about human behaviour?

Social Roles Each social role is a set of rights, duties, expectations, norms and behaviours that a person has to face and fulfill. The model is based on the observation that people behave in a predictable way, and that an individual's behaviour is context specific, based on social position and other factors.

Social Roles On whiteboards List roles that you play/have played Swap with your partner- have them list norms relating to these roles

Ethics Board You are members of the British Psychological Society ethics board for social psychology Read the proposal for Zimbardo’s study What ethical concerns does it raise? Will you grant the study approval? Grid to support

Zimbardo Ethical Proposal 21 Stanford undergraduate students will be recruited and paid for a 2-week study. They will be given a series of personality assessments to ensure they are psychological stable enough to take part. They will give their consent to participate in the prison study however the participants will be unaware that a mock “arrest” will happen at their accomodation. They will be divided randomly into 10 “prisoners,” and 11 ”guards.” They will be placed into a prison setting, where the "prisoner’s" occupy cells, and the "guards" will watch over them in shifts. They can withdraw at any time. Prisoners will be in the cells 24 hours a day while the guards will do 8 hour “shifts”. The researcher will be present and will act as a Warden to monitor activity. Researchers will observe the participant’s behaviour and record results

Zimbardo et al. (1973) The US Navy funded the study, as it and the US Marine Corps were interested in the forces that create conflict between guards and prisoners in the naval prisons.

Social Psychologists investigate three core explanations  Dispositional – Inside the individual  Situational- The situation More recently Systematic- powers in the system, political, cultural, environmental

Watch Make further notes on Ethical issues Aim Sample Method Thoughts on Evaluation and application

Knowledge check- Zimbardo Bingo

Why did they conform to the roles? 1. Discuss 2. Evaluating the research G R A V E Strengths Weaknesses

Conclusion: Do you agree?  Both guards and prisoners conformed to their social roles  Situational factors seem to be more important than dispositional factors, because ‘ordinary’ students became brutal prison guards when placed in the right setting “Guard aggression … was emitted simply as a ‘natural’ consequence of being in the uniform of a ‘guard’ and asserting the power inherent in that role.” ( Haney, Banks & Zimbardo, 1973, discussing findings of the SPE)

De-individuation

Deindividuation is a social process Where people are placed in a group Situation they no longer act as individuals. They no longer behave in the same way that they would when alone, and instead pass all responsibility for their behaviour to the group. Their identity becomes that of the group. In what ways did Zimbardo’s study de-individuate the participants?

Criticisms It is not, as Zimbardo suggests, the guards who wrote their own scripts on the blank canvas of the SPE, but Zimbardo who created the script of terror. ( Banyard, 2007)

Strengths  Some argue the study had high levels of control  Ecological validity- arguably high in comparison to a lot of laboratory experiments into conformity  Study was as true to life as possible  Data- Intensive data was collected both qualitative and quantitative

Weaknesses  Representative sample  Arguably low Ecological validity  Demand Characteristics- Were they performing as they thought Zimbardo wanted them to?

Criticisms- Ethics As you may have noticed, there are a few ethical issues with Zimbardo’s research! Ethics Grid

Harm to participants: The Problem:  Both prisoners and guards may have suffered psychological harm  Prisoners were humiliated and harassed. Became withdrawn – some showing depressive and anxious symptoms  Guards had to accept the fact that they had been willing to mistreat the prisoners  The experiment was stopped after 6 days due to extreme emotional and behavioural effects Zimbardo’s Come Back:  Several sessions were held with participants to help them deal with their emotional reactions to the experience (debriefing)  During the year following the study contact was maintained with all participants to prevent any negative effects persisting  Follow ups over many years have revealed no lasting negative effects. Seems the participants were healthy and able to bounce back from their experience

Lack of fully informed consent: The Problem:  Participants gave only prior general consent  E.g. Participants did not know that they would be arrested at home – this is deception – the truth was with held Zimbardo’s Come Back:  Participants were aware that they would be given either the role of prisoner or guard in a prison simulation study that would last for 14 days  Made clear that they would be under surveillance (have little privacy) and that some of their basic human rights may be suspended (excluding physical abuse)

Reicher and Haslam Watch and complete the handout

Learning outcomes Learners will be able to Recap learning so far on social influence Explain the procedure and findings of Zimbardo et al. (1973) Identify the difference between dispositional and situational influence Consider some ethical issues surrounding the work of Zimbardo et al. (1973) Some learners wil be able to Evaluate Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment including criticisms regarding research methods and ethics

Watch The Experiment

References  Haney, C., Banks, C. & Zimbardo, P. (1973). A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Review 9, 1–17 [Reprinted in E. Aronson (Ed.), Readings about the social animal (3rd ed., pp. 52–67). San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman]. (p.12)  Zimbardo, P. (2004). A situationist perspective on the psychology of evil: Understanding how good people are transformed into perpetrators. In A.Miller (Ed.), The social psychology of good and evil (pp.21–50). New York: Guilford. (p.39)  Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2005). The psychology of tyranny. Scientific American Mind, 16 (3), 44–51. (p.47)  Banyard, P. (2007). Tyranny and the tyrant. The Psychologist, 20, (p.494)  Haslam, S. A. & Reicher, S. D. (2006). Debating the psychology of tyranny: Fundamental issues of theory, perspective and science. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 55–63. (p.62)  Turner, J. C. (2006). Tyranny, freedom and social structure: Escaping our theoretical prisons. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 41–46. (pp.41,45)