Phillip Zimbardo (1933- ) The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE)
Zimbardo a psychologist at Stanford University, decided to conduct an experiment in 1973 to see how people conformed to their roles as prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Zimbardo wanted to look at group conformity and weather a person had to have sadistic personality or if it was the situation that made people sadistic. From his experiment, he gave us Identification conformity theory.
Conformity is a concept that refers to any change in behaviour caused by a group or another person. There are several different reasons why we conform and there are different types of conformity. They are categorised as follows:
Informational conformity, where we lack knowledge and look to the group for the right answer or go along with the group so we don’t look foolish.
Normative conformity, we go along with the group even if we don’t agree due to our desire to belong or avoid punishment.
Identification conformity, we conform to what is expected of us based on social roles (Zimbardo’s experiment) and change our behaviour to fit this.
Internalization conformity, occurs when we want to be like someone else so we change our behaviour.
The Experiment:
In the basement of Stanford university Zimbardo simulated a prison environment. There were 3 cells, a yard, the hole (solitary confinement), warden’s office and a research room with cameras filming the…show more content… He believes that there is a Jackal and Hyde in everyone and you just need a situation to activate it. Zimbardo said that he became evil in his experiment and this could work for everyone. He also believes that the situation caused the prisoners to be submissive and the Guards to become brutal, this proves that people will conform to a certain group role and therefore it’s not a natural behaviour but a situational one.
