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The Power of Social Roles
& Ethical Experimentation
I. Research Ethics: Procedures and Issues
A. Ethical Concerns with Humans: experimenters must be
careful that the designs of their studies do not harm
participants mentally, emotionally, or physically.
B. Deception: in research, when participants are misinformed
or misled regarding a study’s methods and purposes.
C. Informed Consent: a statement informing participants what
to expect in an experiment and that requires their acceptance
of the procedures.
D. Debriefing: an important post-experiment interview between
experimenters and participants verifying that participants are
fully informed about, and were not harmed in any way by, their
experience in an experiment.
II. When Behavior Predicts Attitudes
A. The Snowball Effect: a process that starts from an initial
state of small significance and builds upon itself, becoming
larger and perhaps potentially dangerous or disastrous
(a "spiral of decline"), though it might be beneficial instead.
B. Cognitive Dissonance Theory: a state of tension that
exists when an individual holds contradictory attitudes, or
exhibits behavior that is inconsistent with their attitudes.
There are four basic ways we try to reduce cognitive dissonance…
1) By changing our behavior to bring it in line with the dissonant
cognition.
2) By attempting to justify our behavior through changing one of
the dissonant cognitions.
3) By attempting to justify our behavior by adding new cognitions.
4) Trivialize and/or ignore the entire dissonance arousing situation.
III. Social Role Playing
A. Norms: standards for accepted and expected behavior in
different situations. Norms prescribe “proper” behavior and can
vary among different cultures. Norms typically describe what
most others do; what is “normal”.
B. Role: a specific set of norms that define how people ought
to behave in a given social position.
C. Conformity: a change in behavior or belief as the result of
real or imagined group pressure. Conformity often occurs in
response to established norms.
1) Informational Influence: the influence of other people that leads us to
conform because we see them as a source of information to guide our
behavior. We conform because we believe that others’ interpretation of an
ambiguous situation is more correct than ours and will help us choose an
appropriate course of action.
2) Normative Influence: the influence of other people that leads us to
conform in order to be liked and accepted by them; this type of conformity
results in public compliance with the group’s beliefs and behaviors but
not necessarily private acceptance of those beliefs and behaviors.
IV. The Stanford Prison Experiment
A. It examined the psychological effects of playing the
social role of a prisoner or prison guard.
B. The question was: Is prison brutality due to evil
prisoners and malicious guards or does the situation
make them that way?
C. A total of 24 psychologically healthy undergraduates
were selected out of over 75 to play the roles of both
guards and prisoners and live in a fake prison in the
basement of the Stanford psychology building.
D. Behavioral cruelty and hateful attitudes developed
between prisoners and guards.
E. The experiment was supposed to run for 2 weeks, but
had to be abruptly stopped after only six days because of
the dangerous situation taking place.