A critical review of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment and the BBC Prison Study
Introduction
Tyranny is defined: an unequal social system involving the arbitrary or oppressive use of power by one group over another (Reicher & Haslam, 2006). The link made between groups and tyranny has a long history in social psychology being prominent nearly 2,400 years ago with the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle believed that collective rule leads to moral irresponsibility, haphazardness and is a disguised form of tyranny. Research into tyranny has been carried out ever since.
In 1971 Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) in the basement of Stanford University as a mock prison. Zimbardo’s aim was to examine the effect of roles, to see what happens when you put good people in an evil place and to see how this effects tyranny. He needed participants to be either ‘prisoners’ or ‘guards’ and recruited them through an advertisement, 75 male college students responded and 24 healthy males were chosen and were randomly allocated roles. Zimbardo wanted to encourage deindividuation by giving participants different uniforms and different living conditions (the guards had luxuries and the prisoners were living as real prisoners). The guards quickly began acting authoritarian, being aggressive towards the prisoners and giving them punishments causing physical and emotional breakdowns. Zimbardo’s intention was for his study to last for 2 weeks, however, it lasted 6 days. He concluded that people will conform to social roles in the correct environment. This supports Zimbardo’s statement: ‘It’s a few bad apples… But what we know of our study is: there are a set of social psychological variables that can make ordinary people do things they could never have imagined doing’ in response to the torture which occurred at Abu Ghraib.
Social psychologists Alex Haslam and Steve Reicher decided to re-enact a version of the SPE, the aim of the study was not to simulate a replication of the SPE (which would be impossible because of ethical reasons) but to revisit conceptual issues raised by the SPE. Their approach was based upon the Social Identity Theory which proposes that individuals do not automatically take on roles that are associated with group membership, but do when they identify with the group. This provides an alternative interpretation of the SPE. Like the SPE, in 2001 the participants were recruited through advertisements. There were 332 applicants, and 15 healthy males were chosen and split into five groups (each group were deemed similar), out of the group one person was a guard and two were prisoners. The conditions of the prison environment were similar to that of the SPE, there were three cells and a guards’ area. At the beginning of the study the prisoners were told that if they behaved well they could be promoted to a guard, to test the Social Identity Theory which states that if people feel they can prosper better alone, it will reduce group solidarity. There was only one promotion, and after this caused an increase in group solidarity between the prisoners, who began to plot rebellion but the group identification between the guards remained low. The prisoners eventually broke out of their cells and invaded the guards’ quarters, which after some discussion caused the experimenters to end the study. It was concluded that roles only determine behaviour when you identify with them and the conditions for tyranny (having a strong leader) arise when group solutions fail. Both of these studies support a situational explanation of tyranny rather than a dispositional explanation.
Thesis Statement
In this review I will argue that the SPE contributes to our understanding more than the BBC Prison Study because of the natural behaviour portrayed within the SPE which is due to the natural conditions employed; this has given us solid conclusions on the basis of situational explanations of tyranny.
Analysis
A controversial issue within both studies is demand characteristics. In the BBC Prison Study, the participants were filmed which may have affected their behaviour. However, the researchers suggested that the participants were not ‘play-acting’ because their behaviours and attitudes clearly changed throughout the study whilst being filmed. Furthermore, the researchers have stated that surveillance is everywhere in our daily lives. However, this can be deemed an overstatement; our behaviour is not filmed on a daily basis.
Likewise, in the SPE t¬¬¬he guards and prisoners may have been ‘play-acting’ and not conforming to the roles (Banuazizi & Movahedi, 1973). The guard ‘John Wayne’ admitted to imitating the behaviour of a county sheriff in the film ‘Cool Hand Luke’. Zimbardo however, believed the behaviours were realistic; even if this was the case at the beginning of the study, throughout the study they began internalising their roles. Although, even when behaviour is seen to be artificial and situationally bound it can still have a realistic impact on individuals. Their personal attitudes, beliefs and values are likely to change for them to take on the role; this is explained by the Dissonance Theory (Festinger, 1957; Zimbardo & Leippe, 1991) that suggests individuals have an inner drive to hold their attitudes and beliefs to avoid conflict.
In the SPE the guards were told to simulate a prison environment within the ethical limits for effective functioning (but not told how). The guards knew they had to effectively run a prison and therefore took on the role of a guard causing the prisoners to do the same. However, in the BBC Prison Study, the participants found it more difficult to internalise their roles from the start of the study because the prisoners could be promoted to guards if they displayed good behaviour (Ellemers, Van Knippenberg, & Wilke, 1990; Wright, Taylor, & Moghaddam, 1990). When the single promotion took place the prisoners unified; they knew they couldn’t move out of their roles so to improve their position they challenged the system. This caused no unity between the guards as they felt no higher in status than the prisoners. This intervention caused the participants to worry about what would happen next. However, the researchers argued that this worry is not unique to this study and is a potential concern in any experimental research (Haslam & McGarty, 2004). Nevertheless, this was not an issue in the SPE because the guards and prisoners’ roles never changed, although there were concerns on the prisoner’s behalf in terms of punishments etc. This led to the prisoners experiencing Learned Helplessness (Seligman & Grove, 1970) whereby they gave up and allowed the guards to treat them as though they were real prisoners.
The ethics of the SPE has been criticised; the punishments the prisoners received caused physical and emotional breakdowns. Although the findings were significant from the SPE and have attributed to further research and applications, some say the impact of the study was as much ethical as theoretical (Smith & Mackie, 2007). However, Milgram’s study of obedience (1963) supports the fact that an unethical study can produce a useful conclusion. Zimbardo’s experiment is seen as the necessary sequel to Milgram’s experiment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, both studies have provided situational explanations of tyranny. However, the BBC Prison Study is less applicable because of the artificial behaviour portrayed by the participants due to high ethical boundaries and other factors. Nevertheless, the SPE results have led to applicable conclusions promoting further research into the topic.
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