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Social Psychology

Conformity to Social Roles

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tutor2u Full Lesson PowerPoint

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Full Lesson PowerPoint Key Green = Key Word or Researcher Blue = Question / Discussion Purple = Task / Activity

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Essay

Last Lesson’s Homework: Prepare the following essay for next lesson:

Outline and evaluate research into conformity. (Total 12 marks)

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Essay

Outline and evaluate research into conformity. (Total 12 marks)

15 Minutes

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Peer Assessment

Task: You will now work in pairs to peer assess one of your colleague’sessays. Before we attempt to assess each other’s work, we will watcha short video which explores holistic marking – which is how youressays will be examined.

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Peer Assessment

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Peer Assessment

Task: Read the essay in pairs. Once you have read the essay decidewhich mark band the essay fits into for the five different columns.Once you have done this decide on an overall mark band and mark.

The most important aspectof this task is the feedbackyou provide.

Write one or two EBI (evenbetter if targets) explaininghow the person can moveup to the next mark band.Remember to be specific!SAMPLE

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Zimbardo (1963)

Lesson Objective: To outline and evaluate Zimbardo’s (1963) research into conformity to

social roles.

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Zimbardo (1963)

Task: As you watch this video, consider the short-term and long-termeffects this experiment had on the participants (both prisoners andguards).

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Zimbardo (1963)

Task: As you can see, there is a lot of information tooutline when discussing Zimbardo. Using theinformation on your handout, bullet point the keydetails from the aim, method, results and conclusion.Try to summarise the 2/3 most important details inthe method/results section.

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Zimbardo (1963)

Task: For each of the evaluation pointsstated on your handout, explain whyeach point is either a strength or alimitation of Zimbardo’s research. Usethe sentence starter: ‘This mattersbecause…’ to help you.

Be ready to share your answers.

10 MinutesSAMPLE

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Zimbardo et al. (1973) Aim: To investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life. Method: The 22 participants were selected from 75 who answered a newspaper advertisement run by Stanford University in a local newspaper: “Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. $15 per day for 1-2 weeks.” All applicants were interviewed and those perceived to be most stable were accepted, and randomly assigned the role of either “prisoner” or “guard”. One person decided not to participate, so that left 10 prisoners and 11 guards. The basement of Stanford University was converted into a “prison” and the experiment was set up to run for two weeks. The prisoners wore smocks, rubber flip-flops, and a stocking on their head (instead of shaving their head). Each prisoner had a light chain around his ankle. The guards wore khaki shirts and trousers, peaked caps, reflective sunglasses and carried a baton and a whistle. This different clothing served to emphasise the roles, with the guards’ uniform demonstrating a military feel, with the whistle and stick as signs of control, and the prisoners’ clothing designed to be humiliating and emasculating. The experiment began with the prisoners being “arrested” at their homes. They were then blindfolded and finger-printed and taken to the “prison”, where they were stripped and deloused and issued with their prison clothing. After being photographed they were placed in one of the three cells. Prisoners were to respect the rules that said they had to be addressed and to address each other only by their number (printed on their smock). The researcher, Philip Zimbardo, and two co-researchers observed and audio-and video-recorded the behaviour of both the guards and the prisoners. Each participant was interviewed during the study and most of them once again just prior to the end of the study. Results: The environment had a huge and almost instantaneous effect on the behaviour of the guards and prisoners, and upon the social interactions within and between these groups. Prisoners became increasingly passive as guards’ interaction with them became more verbally hostile. After only a day symptoms of stress began to show in some of the prisoners, as some of the guards began harassing them. An attempt by prisoners to fight back by barricading themselves in a cell was broken up with fire extinguishers, and prisoners were then stripped and had their bedding removed. Within the first 4 days, 4 prisoners had to be released with signs of

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extreme emotional disturbance, and on the fifth day another one was released after coming out in a psychosomatic rash. The experiment was terminated on the sixth day when the morality of what was happening was questioned by Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D. who had come in to hold interviews with the guards and prisoners and who strongly objected when she saw the prisoners being abused by the guards. Conclusion: The guards and the prisoners conformed to the social roles they were expected to play. Both groups became dehumanised in the eyes of the others and the experiment clearly supports the situational explanation of behaviour rather than the dispositional one. Task: As you can see, there is a lot of information to outline when discussing Zimbardo. Using the information on these two pages, bullet point the key details from the aim, method, results and conclusion. Try to summarise the 2/3 most important details in the method/results section. Aim:

Method:

Results:

Conclusion:

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Task: For each of the evaluation points stated below, explain why each point is either a strength or a limitation of Zimbardo’s research. Use the sentence starter: ‘This matters because…’ to help you.

Evaluation Elaboration Zimbardo’s sample consists of predominately white, middle class young men.

This matters because…

There was a real lack of informed consent, in that the behaviour of the guards towards the prisoners could not have been foreseen, and therefore the consent given was not to what actually ensued. Moreover, the participants who were prisoners had not consented to being arrested at their homes.

This matters because…

The IV and DV are not easily identifiable. Although this has been called an experiment, it is really more of an observational study.

This matters because…

While the extreme results might not have been predictable, when reading the detailed reports and the article it is clear that prisoners who experienced psychological distress were not released as soon as they showed problems.

This matters because…

Zimbardo has admitted getting too involved with his own research and acting more like a prison superintendent than a psychologist. In his defence he has pointed out that extensive group and individual debriefing sessions were held and all participants returned post-experimental questionnaires several weeks, then several months later, then at yearly intervals. These showed no lasting effects of the experiment.

This matters because…

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AQA A-Level PsychologyPeer Marking grid

Name on essay: Names of peer-markers:

Essay title:

Overall Mark Band: Mark Awarded: /12 or 16 EBI (Even better if):

WWW (What went well):

*Words in marking grid in bold font are key words used in the mark scheme, whereas those in non-bold font are inferred. www.tutor2u.net/psychology @tutor2upsych

Level AS Level A Level Knowledge Accuracy Evaluation Focus Specialist terminology

4 10-12 13-16 Well-detailed Accurate Thorough and effective

Clear, coherentand focussed

Used effectively

3 7-9 9-12 Evident(reasonably detailed)

Occasionalinaccuracies

Mostly effective Mostly used effectively

2 4-6 5-8 Present(lacks detail)

Numerousinaccuracies

Partly effective Used inappropriately on occasions

1 1-3 1-4 Limited(limited/absent knowledge)

Highly inaccurate

Limited, not effectiveor absent

Either absent orinappropriately used

0 0 0 None None None None

Mostly clear andorganised

Lacks clarity, accuracy and organisation

Lacks clarity, manyinaccuracies and poorly organised

None

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