Term
| Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment |
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Definition
DESIGN:
The study simulated prison conditions
24 participants randomly assigned to be guards or prisoners
High attention to detail (Participants were arrested, booked, made to wear prison outfits, deloused, visiting hours, prison chaplain, parole hearing, Zimbardo as prison superintendent worked with guards)
CONCEPTS:
Power of the Situation
Thomas Theorem
Roles
RESULTS:
Participants took on their roles, enacting extreme behavior
- Guards mentally abused prisoners (strip,
Sleep deprivation, homoerotic advances to one another, Made to humiliate fellow prisoners who disobeyed)
- Several prisoners broke down mentally (One wanted to break back in, One went on hunger strike, Both left the study early, One became a prison psychiatrist)
Discontinued after 6 days (intended to last 2 weeks) |
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Term
| "On Being Sane in an Insane Place" |
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Definition
Rosenhan, 1971
DESIGN: 8 sane people (psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, etc.) made appointments at 12 hospitals reporting to hear voices, but otherwise represented themselves truthfully. All were admitted to the institution diagnosed with schizophrenia. From there on they acted normal until they would be diagnosed as normal and released. (7-52 days, 19 on average)
Findings: The situation construed their behavior has crazy. Staff interpreted their behavior as insane. Patients were nervous and freaked out, self-fulfilling prophecy. The insane suspected they were sane.
Conclusions: Psychiatry is an inexact science.
*Situations carry with them expectations that can become self-fulfilling prophecies. |
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Term
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Definition
• Definition: An individual's relative standing in a groups hierarchy based on prestige, honor, and respect.
Group tends to divide into relative hierarchies based on status.
• Discriminatory-bases: Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Wealth, Power, Attractiveness
• Merit-based: Education, Skills, Intelligence, Generosity, Honesty
Status hierarchies are based on both fair and unfair criteria. They have both good (streamline interaction and help groups coordinate action) and bad effects (discrimination)
• What does status do? Higher Status standing leads to…
- Greater respect from others
- Greater influence
- More opportunities to speak
- Ideas/thoughts more positively evaluated
- Higher perceived competence
- Higher perceived honesty and integrity
- Better pay
- More lenient standards of evaluation (Making it hard to lose status) |
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Term
| Milgram's Obedience Experiment |
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Definition
DESIGN:
- Conducted at Yale University in New Haven, CT 1960-1963
- Participants were adult males, age 20-50
- Age and occupational background controlled across conditions
- Participants told they were in a learning experiment with learner/teacher roles randomly drawn
- Learner strapped into an electric chair
- Teacher told to read and test learner on a series of word pairs
- Learner gets several answers wrong, teacher administers shocks
- As level of shock increases, so do grunts and shouts of pain
- At 180 volts learner says he can’t stand pain, at 300 volts he refuses to answer
- Experimenter orders teacher to continue (“The experiment requires you continue.” “You have no choice, you must continue.”)
Results show that:
Proximity of victim matters (Credibility of study, Empathy, Feeling of responsibility)
Proximity of authority matters (Fear of authority, Reduced timeliness of commands, Legitimacy (appropriateness of commands)) |
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