Celeste Garcia May 16, 2012 PSY 302 Assignment 3 The Methodological Implications of the Stanford Prison Study The Stanford Prison study is a well-known study in the field of psychology. Although this study may be known for its controversy on whether the study was ethnical or not it did prove to gain significant findings when it came to the social behavior of its participants. In just one week this mock prison environment caused a psychological affect within its normal participants. The Stanford Prison Study illustrated the power of the situation in various ways. It did so through the minimizing of situational and dispositional factors, the roles of guards and prisoners, and the change in behavior. In this study conducted by Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo (1973), a popperian (multiple) hypothesis was introduced: the null, alternative, and dispositional hypotheses. The main argument was that people act a certain way based on a role, assignment to the treatment of guard or prisoner would result in significantly different reactions on behavioral measures of interaction, emotional measures of mood state and pathology, attitudes toward self, as well as other indices of coping and adaptation to this novel situation (Haney et al., 1973, p. 72). The independent variable in this study is the random assignment to the role of guard or prisoner. According to Evans & Rooney (2008) the independent variable (IV) is the variable manipulated by the researcher and expected to influence the dependent variable (DV), which is the measures of behavior or mental processes expected to be affected by the independent variable. The dependent variable in this study is the change in behavior based on role. The extraneous variables are the situational and dispositional factors in this study. An extraneous variable is a variable that may affect the outcome of a study but was not manipulated by the researcher (Evans & Rooney,
Garcia 2 2008). The design of this study minimized the effectiveness of trait or prior social history explanations by means of careful subject selection and random assignment to roles (Haney et al., 1973). The minimizing of dispositional factors played a key role in demonstrating the power of the situation. In this study we see the controlling of such factors during the screening process of the participants. Dispositional factors were controlled through test and screening on personal inventory, participants had to be normal. According to Haney et al. (1973) considerable effort and care went into determining the composition of the final subject population. Through case histories, personal interviews and a battery of personality tests, the subjects chosen to participate manifested no apparent abnormalities, anti-social tendencies or social backgrounds which were other than exemplary (Haney et al., 1973, p. 90). Out of the 24 participants chosen all were considered to be normal-average, highly representative of middle-class, Caucasian with the exception of one Oriental, no history or crime, and healthy males attending colleges throughout the United States who were in the Stanford area during the summer (Haney et al., 1973). By making sure that all participants were similar in every way possible, considered normal and making sure that no one knew each other proved that the change in behavior was due to the situation not personality traits. The random assignment to guard or prisoner roles also demonstrated the power of the situation to a great extent. In this part of the experiment all participants were aware that they may be chosen to play either role and agreed to take on either one. According to Haney et al. (1973) the participants who assumed the prisoner role remained in the mock prison 24 hours per day for the duration of the study (p 74). The participants who assumed the guard position were free men, able to go about their usual lives, working eight-hour shifts and only in the prison environment during their work shift (Haney et al., 1973). The key factors here in demonstrating the power of the situation is the random assignment and the fact that both roles where given little to no instruction on how a prisoner or guard should behave. The participants who were assigned to the role of prisoner were told to
Garcia 3 expect to be under surveillance, have some of their civil rights suspended during imprisonment, and were given no other information about what to expect or instructions about behavior appropriate for a prisoner role (Haney et al., 1973). Although the participants assuming the guard role did get instructed in the administration details and were told their assigned task was to maintain the reasonable degree of order within the prison necessary for its effective functioning, they were intentionally given only minimal guidelines for what it meant to be a guard (Haney et al., 1973). With this minimal instruction on how to act we clearly see that the transformation in behavior is due to the power of the situation. In the film Quiet Rage we see this transformation of roles happening within the first day of the experiment, prisoner 8612 wanted to be released from the experiment within the first 36 hours he turned into a crazy person. I believe that the uniforms given to both the guards and prisoners also contributed to getting them into their role. It made it more real. Finally, the power of the situation is also seen through the change in behavior of both groups. The change in behavior from both groups was observed recorded and analyzed. The dependent measures were of two general types; transactions between and within each group of subjects, recorded on video and audio tape as well as directly observed, individual reactions on questionnaires, mood inventories, personality test, daily guard shift reports and past experimental interview (Haney et al., 1973, p. 73). As mentioned in the previous paragraph we see change in behavior caused by the reality of the situation and the power of the roles. In the film the Quiet Rage we see how quickly participants fell into their roles. Some of the guards, one in particular, enjoyed the social power and status that came with the role, the bossing and creating of punishments. We see the how the dehumanizing treatment instilled upon the prisoners caused emotional distress. According to Haney et al. (1973) the guards experienced a marked gain in social power, status and group identification which made role-playing rewarding, while the prisoners experienced a loss of personal identity and the arbitrary control of their behavior which resulted in a syndrome of passivity, dependency, depression and helplessness (p 69).
Garcia 4 The film the Quiet Rage also demonstrated how real this study became to the participants. In one clip of this film we see how the prisoners sided with the guards against a solitary fellow prisoner who coped with his situation by refusing to eat. The prisoners treated him as a trouble maker who deserved to be punished for his disobedience. In another clip we see how a prisoner asks the priest to get him a lawyer to get him out of there and other prisoners who were asking to be paroled. The mock prison environment, the clothing and the power given to the guard, the lack of privacy for prisoners all made the participants really think they were who they pretended to be. Although this study is mainly known for its controversy of whether it was ethical or not, its findings did prove the power of the situation when it came to social behavior. By minimizing the extraneous variables that could change the outcome and the use of random assignment to either role proved that the change in behavior was due to the power if the situation and not personal characteristics. Despite the sample size being small and the experiment being cut short, its results were significant because of the behavioral effects observed. This study also helps in understanding prison life and its behavior based on roles. In this study behavior changes was caused by the power of the situation.
Garcia 5 References Evans, A. N. & Rooney, B. J. (2008). Methods in Psychological Research. Thousand Oak, CA: Sage Publications. Haney, C., Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P. (1973). Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69-97. Zimbardo, P. (1973). Quiet Rage: the Stanford Prison Experiment [VHS].