Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo
People often behave according to the role they are given, even when that role is artificial. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment showed how quickly ordinary people adopt extreme behaviours when assigned a social role.
Real World
Abu Ghraib prison guards in 2003 committed acts of abuse against detainees that mirrored Zimbardo's findings — ordinary US soldiers rapidly adopted brutal guard behaviours once assigned authority and uniform within a dehumanising environment.
Exam Focus
Evaluating Zimbardo requires addressing lack of internal validity; mention Zimbardo's own active role as superintendent to show researcher bias.
Evaluation Scaffold
A four-step framework for high-quality evaluation. Use this for 'assess', 'evaluate', and 'to what extent' questions.
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