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The Power of the Situation
• We just learned about how social conditions
affect human behavior, thoughts, and feelings
• Social influence and obedience affected how
people responded to the Asch “line experiment”
and the Milgram “obedience study”
• Now we will discuss *why* the situation can
influence us by learning about the “Stanford
Prison Experiment”
Stanford Prison Experiment:
some background information
• Conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo and
others in the basement of the Stanford
Psychology Department.
• Volunteers were randomly assigned to play the
role of guards and prisoners in a mock prison in
the basement.
• Both prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their
assigned roles, and lead to genuinely dangerous
and psychologically damaging situations
Stanford Prison Experiment:
What would you have done?
• If you were a prisoner, how would you have acted?
• If you were a guard, how would you have acted?
• After the study, how do you think the prisoners and
guards felt when they saw each other in the same
civilian clothes again?
Stanford Prison Experiment:
Criticisms of the experiment
• Unethical
• Unscientific
- No scientific controls because it was a field experiment
- Small sample size of 24, but really just 1 group so N=1
- Conclusions and observations were anecdotal
• Participants acted how they were expected to behave
- Zimbardo gave guards no rules, said they could “create fear”
- Zimbardo admitted he was not a neutral observer but acted
like a “superintendent” who enabled the bad behavior
Stanford Prison Experiment:
A replication?
• In 2002 two psychologists from England
conducted a partial replication with the assistance
of the BBC who broadcast scenes from the study
as a reality TV program called The Experiment.
• Their results and conclusions were very different
from Zimbardo's
BBC “The Experiment
• How was it similar to Zimbardo’s study?
- Randomly selected volunteers assigned to “guards” and “prisoners”
- Mock prison created in the George Lucas soundstage in London.
- End early (ended two days earlier than planned)
BBC “The Experiment”
• How did it differ from Zimbardo’s study?
- Psychologists only observers, not involved
- “Guards” were given guidelines and instructions
• Very different results
- Guards were not sadistic or abusive, made peace with prisoners
- Some guards were “repelled” by the situation, two left in “disgust”
• What does this imply about Zimbardo study?
• What does this imply about human nature?
Abu Ghraib prison
• What do these experiments tell us about what
happened at Abu Ghraib prison?
• Did the power of the situation influence the
guards?
• Were there other factors involved?
Attitudes and Persuasion
• An Attitude is a like or dislike that influences our
behavior toward a person or thing.
• Persuasion refers to any attempt to change your
attitudes and thus your behavior.
• People’s attitudes tend to fall along a continuum from
weak (easily changed) to strong (highly resistant)
• How do you change people’s attitudes?
Attitudes and Persuasion
• A person is more likely to change YOUR attitudes when…
• Person variables:
• The message is highly important to you
• Your mood
• Situation variables:
• Perceived similarity between the speaker and you
• Perception that idea is approved or endorsed by a
respected group
Attitudes and Persuasion
Heightened resistance
• What if people know they are about to hear an argument
with which they will most likely disagree?
• Telling them that this is the case will increase the
likelihood that they will reject the argument (the
Forewarning Effect).
• Presenting a weak version of an argument and following
it with a stronger version increases the chance that the
strong one will be rejected also (the Inoculation Effect).
Cognitive Dissonance
• Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term
which describes the uncomfortable tension that
comes from holding two conflicting thoughts at
the same time.
• To reduce dissonance,
people modify one of the
two thoughts, or invent
new thoughts