Asch’s studies of conformity (1956)
Your assignment is to choose two of the studies listed above, research them in detail and write a brief summary about each. Your summaries should include:
- the aim of the study
- the basic method of the study
- the results
- the conclusions
- strengths and limitations
- ethical concerns
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment (1971)
This is a most controversial experiment even now. Phil Zimbardo and his colleagues started this experiment on August 17, 1971.Zimbardo choose 24 healthy and most psychologically stable college students by paying 15 dollar per day as volunteers. It suppose be an experiment last 1-2 weeks, but it did not last long- 6 days only exact. Zimbardo was forced to pull the plug because of the disturbing behavior from guards and negative reactions from the prisoners. The aim of the study was to explore the psychology of prison life and what kind of situation are affecting people's behavior- to make miserable .
the method in this study was quite simple: the 24 male were randomly assigned to 2 groups, which were prison guards(12), and Prisoners(12). The guard were given power to deliver punishments as they saw necessary, they also had to wore sunglasses to prevent any eye contact and wore the army clothes just like real guard. Prisoners wore dirty and uncomfortable prisoner clothes. They also wore chains around their ankles to remind them of their powerlessness.
but the results were unexpected : at the first few days, guards were abusing their power in a horrific way, and those prisoners were violently abused and humiliated on a regular basis. These normal healthy students were turning into monster in less than 72 hours. The experiment was totally out of control before Zimbardo's attention. At the second day, the riot broke out, some guards used fired extinguishers to batter protesters- when the research team werent around. Those guards became wild, unpredictable violent and sadistic.
At the same time, within 36 hours since the experiment started, one of the prisoners started to show signs of insanity.( began react crazy, to scream , to curse. and he was really suffering and regretted, and wanted to be released.)
the conclude of this study support the idea of situational attribution, rather than dis-positional attribution.
means it was the situation that turned the guards to become sadistic and violent, not their personalities.
Also, this study is used to support the cognitive Dissonance Theory.
However, it has always been a controversial experiment event, because as doing the study, should not give any harm nor psychologically issues. But we can see almost all people involved got mental disturbance, which is highly unethical! It should least protect the safety of the participants.
This is a most controversial experiment even now. Phil Zimbardo and his colleagues started this experiment on August 17, 1971.Zimbardo choose 24 healthy and most psychologically stable college students by paying 15 dollar per day as volunteers. It suppose be an experiment last 1-2 weeks, but it did not last long- 6 days only exact. Zimbardo was forced to pull the plug because of the disturbing behavior from guards and negative reactions from the prisoners. The aim of the study was to explore the psychology of prison life and what kind of situation are affecting people's behavior- to make miserable .
the method in this study was quite simple: the 24 male were randomly assigned to 2 groups, which were prison guards(12), and Prisoners(12). The guard were given power to deliver punishments as they saw necessary, they also had to wore sunglasses to prevent any eye contact and wore the army clothes just like real guard. Prisoners wore dirty and uncomfortable prisoner clothes. They also wore chains around their ankles to remind them of their powerlessness.
but the results were unexpected : at the first few days, guards were abusing their power in a horrific way, and those prisoners were violently abused and humiliated on a regular basis. These normal healthy students were turning into monster in less than 72 hours. The experiment was totally out of control before Zimbardo's attention. At the second day, the riot broke out, some guards used fired extinguishers to batter protesters- when the research team werent around. Those guards became wild, unpredictable violent and sadistic.
At the same time, within 36 hours since the experiment started, one of the prisoners started to show signs of insanity.( began react crazy, to scream , to curse. and he was really suffering and regretted, and wanted to be released.)
the conclude of this study support the idea of situational attribution, rather than dis-positional attribution.
means it was the situation that turned the guards to become sadistic and violent, not their personalities.
Also, this study is used to support the cognitive Dissonance Theory.
However, it has always been a controversial experiment event, because as doing the study, should not give any harm nor psychologically issues. But we can see almost all people involved got mental disturbance, which is highly unethical! It should least protect the safety of the participants.
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