Outline and evaluate Zimbardo's research into social roles (6 marks).

Zimbardo set up a mock prison and randomly assigned the roles of guards or prisoners to 24 male students, who were deemed emotionally stabled after extensive psychological testing. To increase the realism of the experiment, they were arrested and blindfolded at their homes and delivered to the prison, were they were strip searched and issued a uniform and number. The guards had their own uniform, complete with wooden baton, glasses and handcuffs, and were told they had complete power over the prisoners. Zimbardo found that the guards took up their roles with enthusiasm and their behaviour became a threat to prisoners psychological and physical health, this meant that the study stopped after 6 days instead of 14. Prisoners rebelled- and guards retaliated and harassed the prisoners. This suggests the guards and the prisoners conformed to their social roles and emphasises the power of the situation. However , a methodological implication of Zimbardo’s research is the lack of realism. Banuazizi and Mohavedi (1975) argued the participants were playing acting based on the stereotypes of a prison. For example, ‘cool hand Luke’, who caused riots and rebelled against the prison guards. On the other hand, Zimbardo argued that his quantitative data showed that 90% of the prisoner’s conversations were about prison life, suggesting this situation seemed very real to the participants, which also gives a high level of internal validity. Consequently, a number of ethical issues were broken due to Zimbardo’s dual role within the study. He acted as a superintendent, as well as the role of a lead researcher, during an interview. This suggests he was concerned over the running of his prison rather the responsibilities he had towards the prisoners. Therefore, this shows neglect towards the health and well-being of the participants, which cause the study to be shortened to 6 days rather than 14 days.