(Updates added 4/30/2017)
Phil Zimbardo and colleagues' Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), though conducted and reported in the early 1970s, continues to stimulate vigorous discussion to this day. Here are some areas in which the SPE comes up today:
1. It is often discussed in conjunction with the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal (2003-04) in Iraq.
2. The SPE sometimes serves as a focal point in larger debates over the person and the situation.
3. Empirical studies on specific aspects of the SPE itself continue to be conducted (e.g., the nature of individuals who would volunteer for a prison study as opposed to an ordinary study; Carnahan & McFarland, 2007).
4. A feature film, "The Stanford Prison Experiment," was released in 2015.
To honor the staying power of the SPE, I've written the following lyrics...
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Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," Lennon/McCartney)
It was back ’round 1970,
Phil Zimbardo did a test to see,
What kind of conduct would prevail,
From a made-up college-student jail,
Inmates and guards, a random split,
So real, they didn’t know what hit,
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Exper’ment,
(Fanfare)
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Exper’ment,
Life simulated in the hole*,
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Exper’ment,
What happens when you play a role,
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison, ’Bardo’s Stanford Prison,
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Exper’ment,
The guards seemed to be normal,
They passed their pre-screening,
But once they got their billy clubs,
Their treatment became demeaning,
The study careening,
Chaos soon took over like a storm,
Conflict heightened and rebellions formed,
Guards struggled for the upper hand,
Pressure many inmates could not stand…
Back in the news with Abu Ghraib,
The study’s relevance has stayed,
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Exper’ment…
*The term "the hole" appears to be slang specifically for solitary confinement, as opposed to prison in general. The word "hole" fits in so nicely with the rhyme scheme, so I hope everyone will extend me some artistic license.
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Background/Explanation
The song basically presents the conventional situationist account of the SPE. College-student volunteers who "seemed to be normal" were assigned via "random split" to be either prisoners or guards. Prisoners and guards alike, upon assumption of their statuses ("what happens when you play a role" and, on the guards' part, "once they got their billy clubs"), then took on extreme and pathological forms of behavior. The guards, of course, became sadistic, and some of the prisoners experienced nervous breakdowns.
Further Reading
Carnahan, T. & McFarland, S. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could participant self-selection have led to the cruelty? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 603-614.
Haslam, S.A. & Reicher, S. (2007). Beyond the Banality of Evil: Three dynamics of an interactionist social psychology of tyranny. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 615-622.
[Discussion of these two articles on Psychology and Crime News.]
Stanford Prison Experiment website.
The Situationist blog. Discussion by Zimbardo and others on person X situation interaction, see postings from late July and early August 2007.
Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil.New York: Random House. (Website)
Zimbardo, P.G., Maslach, C, & Haney, C. (2000). Reflections on the Stanford Prison Experiment: Genesis, transformations, consequences. In T. Blass (Ed.), Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on the Milgram paradigm (pp. 193-237). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. (Chapter in manuscript form)
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
"Group Identities"
(Updated April 25, 2015)
One of the things that makes social psychology "social" is the fact that individuals are members of numerous groups, whether by default (e.g., a member of one's family) or by actively joining (e.g., a trade union or university alumni association). For nearly 40 years (1969-2008), Dick McGlynn was the resident groups researcher on the Texas Tech faculty, before his retirement. Today, Zach Hohman, carries that banner. The followimg song alludes to several aspects of group- and social-identity research and is dedicated to Dick and Zach.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Group Identities
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of “Bare Necessities,” Terry Gilkyson, popularized in the movie, The Jungle Book)
We have our group identities,
Fairly stable entities,
They tell us whom we like, and whom we don’t,
Some groups, we join electively,
And get esteem collectively,
They say whom we’ll befriend, and whom we won’t,
The ways to harsh conflict, are easy to pave,
That’s what Sherif did, with Robbers Cave,
But, groups need not, even be real,
To give opponents, a raw deal,
When you think of, all the groups you're in,
And how you feel, when they lose and win,
And, think of a few,
[Brief interlude]
Your group identities, are important, to you,
They're part of you,
We have our group identities,
Fairly stable entities,
They tell us whom we like, and whom we don’t,
Some groups, we join electively,
And get esteem collectively,
They say whom we’ll befriend, and whom we won’t,
For kids unsure, of their identities,
"Cool" groups will attract them, the "cliques" that be,
But, cool groups, may be unhealthy,
Their behaviors, so risky,
When you think of, all the groups you're in,
And how you feel, when they lose and win,
And, think of a few,
[Brief interlude]
Your group identities, are important, to you,
They're part of you,
We have our group identities,
Fairly stable entities,
They tell us whom we like, and whom we don’t,
Some groups, we join electively,
And get esteem collectively,
They say whom we’ll befriend, and whom we won’t,
[Improvisations...]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background/Explanation
The song alludes to five lines of research (intentionally, at least)...
1. The word "entities" in the first part is a subtle reference to the concept of entitativity, a nearly 50-year-old idea that has been getting a lot of attention from social psychologists in recent years. This vigorous activity can be seen in the list of abstracts for a British conference on “Groups, Politics, and Organizations.” Quoting from the symposium abstract by Lowell Gaertner:
…Donald Campbell (1958) coined the concept of entitativity to convey that social groups vary in the extent to which they are perceived as being an entity or a cohesive whole.
2. The second part refers, a little more explicitly, to research on collective self-esteem. As studied by Luhtanen, Crocker, and colleagues (see References below), individuals can experience high or low esteem as a result of the groups they're in and their evaluations of these groups.
3. The next section cites two classic lines of research. First is the "Robbers Cave" study by Sherif and colleagues, in which the situation was manipulated so that two groups of boy campers formed a rivalry with each other, but then overcame their animosity to cooperate on a task.
4. The other line of research mentioned in that section is Tajfel's "minimal groups paradigm," in which groups are created on arbitrary bases and tested for ingroup favoritism in allocations of rewards. Quoting from Tajfel and colleagues (1971):
…in a situation devoid of the usual trappings of ingroup membership and of all the vagaries of interacting with an outgroup, the [subjects] still act in terms of their ingroup membership and of an intergroup categorization. Their actions are unambiguously directed at favouring the members of their ingroup as against the members of the outgroup (p. 172).
5. Hogg, Siegel, and Hohman (2011) develop a theoretical account of why adolescents engage in so much risky behavior (e.g., substance use). Adolescents uncertain of their identity may be attracted to "cool" cliques (also see Brown, Eicher, & Petrie, 1986), the problem being that such cliques tend to engage in unhealthy behaviors.
Further Reading
Brown, B. B., Eicher, S. A., & Petrie, S. (1986). The importance of peer group (‘‘crowd’’) affiliation in adolescence. Journal of Adolescence, 9, 73–96.
Foer, F. (2004). How soccer explains the world. New York: HarperCollins.
Hogg, M.A. (2006). Social Identity Theory. In P.J. Burke (Ed.), Contemporary social psychological theories (pp. 111-136). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Hogg, M. A., Siegel, J. T., & Hohman, Z. P. (2011). Groups can jeopardize your health: Identifying with un-healthy groups to reduce self-uncertainty. Self and Identity, 10, 326-335.
Luhtanen, R., & Crocker, J. (1992). A collective self-esteem scale: Self-evaluation of one's social identity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 302-318. (LINK to the Collective Self-Esteem Scale and other measures.)
Sherif, M., Harvey, O. J., White, B. J., Hood, W. R., & Sherif, C. W. (1961). Intergroup conflict and co-operation: The Robbers Cave experiment. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Book Exchange. (Available online at Psychology Classics website.)
Social Identity Theory (Online Summary)
Tajfel, H., Billig, M.G., Bundy, R.P., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 149-178.
One of the things that makes social psychology "social" is the fact that individuals are members of numerous groups, whether by default (e.g., a member of one's family) or by actively joining (e.g., a trade union or university alumni association). For nearly 40 years (1969-2008), Dick McGlynn was the resident groups researcher on the Texas Tech faculty, before his retirement. Today, Zach Hohman, carries that banner. The followimg song alludes to several aspects of group- and social-identity research and is dedicated to Dick and Zach.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Group Identities
Lyrics by Alan Reifman
(May be sung to the tune of “Bare Necessities,” Terry Gilkyson, popularized in the movie, The Jungle Book)
We have our group identities,
Fairly stable entities,
They tell us whom we like, and whom we don’t,
Some groups, we join electively,
And get esteem collectively,
They say whom we’ll befriend, and whom we won’t,
The ways to harsh conflict, are easy to pave,
That’s what Sherif did, with Robbers Cave,
But, groups need not, even be real,
To give opponents, a raw deal,
When you think of, all the groups you're in,
And how you feel, when they lose and win,
And, think of a few,
[Brief interlude]
Your group identities, are important, to you,
They're part of you,
We have our group identities,
Fairly stable entities,
They tell us whom we like, and whom we don’t,
Some groups, we join electively,
And get esteem collectively,
They say whom we’ll befriend, and whom we won’t,
For kids unsure, of their identities,
"Cool" groups will attract them, the "cliques" that be,
But, cool groups, may be unhealthy,
Their behaviors, so risky,
When you think of, all the groups you're in,
And how you feel, when they lose and win,
And, think of a few,
[Brief interlude]
They're part of you,
We have our group identities,
Fairly stable entities,
They tell us whom we like, and whom we don’t,
Some groups, we join electively,
And get esteem collectively,
They say whom we’ll befriend, and whom we won’t,
[Improvisations...]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background/Explanation
The song alludes to five lines of research (intentionally, at least)...
1. The word "entities" in the first part is a subtle reference to the concept of entitativity, a nearly 50-year-old idea that has been getting a lot of attention from social psychologists in recent years. This vigorous activity can be seen in the list of abstracts for a British conference on “Groups, Politics, and Organizations.” Quoting from the symposium abstract by Lowell Gaertner:
…Donald Campbell (1958) coined the concept of entitativity to convey that social groups vary in the extent to which they are perceived as being an entity or a cohesive whole.
2. The second part refers, a little more explicitly, to research on collective self-esteem. As studied by Luhtanen, Crocker, and colleagues (see References below), individuals can experience high or low esteem as a result of the groups they're in and their evaluations of these groups.
3. The next section cites two classic lines of research. First is the "Robbers Cave" study by Sherif and colleagues, in which the situation was manipulated so that two groups of boy campers formed a rivalry with each other, but then overcame their animosity to cooperate on a task.
4. The other line of research mentioned in that section is Tajfel's "minimal groups paradigm," in which groups are created on arbitrary bases and tested for ingroup favoritism in allocations of rewards. Quoting from Tajfel and colleagues (1971):
…in a situation devoid of the usual trappings of ingroup membership and of all the vagaries of interacting with an outgroup, the [subjects] still act in terms of their ingroup membership and of an intergroup categorization. Their actions are unambiguously directed at favouring the members of their ingroup as against the members of the outgroup (p. 172).
5. Hogg, Siegel, and Hohman (2011) develop a theoretical account of why adolescents engage in so much risky behavior (e.g., substance use). Adolescents uncertain of their identity may be attracted to "cool" cliques (also see Brown, Eicher, & Petrie, 1986), the problem being that such cliques tend to engage in unhealthy behaviors.
Further Reading
Brown, B. B., Eicher, S. A., & Petrie, S. (1986). The importance of peer group (‘‘crowd’’) affiliation in adolescence. Journal of Adolescence, 9, 73–96.
Foer, F. (2004). How soccer explains the world. New York: HarperCollins.
Hogg, M.A. (2006). Social Identity Theory. In P.J. Burke (Ed.), Contemporary social psychological theories (pp. 111-136). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Hogg, M. A., Siegel, J. T., & Hohman, Z. P. (2011). Groups can jeopardize your health: Identifying with un-healthy groups to reduce self-uncertainty. Self and Identity, 10, 326-335.
Luhtanen, R., & Crocker, J. (1992). A collective self-esteem scale: Self-evaluation of one's social identity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 302-318. (LINK to the Collective Self-Esteem Scale and other measures.)
Sherif, M., Harvey, O. J., White, B. J., Hood, W. R., & Sherif, C. W. (1961). Intergroup conflict and co-operation: The Robbers Cave experiment. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Book Exchange. (Available online at Psychology Classics website.)
Social Identity Theory (Online Summary)
Tajfel, H., Billig, M.G., Bundy, R.P., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 149-178.
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