There are many classical social psychological experiments that have been conducted over the years which reveal important understandings about prejudice, stereotyping and aggression.
Prejudice can be defined as aggression or hostility that is directed towards someone because of their membership in a minority group.
Stereotyping occurs when certain ideas are held about people who are part of a particular group and is normally based on their membership in that particular group. Stereotypes can be both positive and negative.
Aggression is either physical or verbal, and is basically intended to cause pain or harm to a person. There are four particular studies that I consider are most important when considering these concepts. Ranked in order of most important they include; Bandura, Ross and Ross’s imitation of film-mediated aggressive models study, Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment, Milgram’s behavioural study of obedience and Dovidio and Gaertner’s aversive racism and selection decisions study.
Bandura, Ross and Ross (1988)Bandura, Ross and Ross’s (1988) study titled ‘Imitation of Film-mediated Aggressive Models’ aimed to discover whether exposing children to filmed aggression would result in heightened aggressive reactions after viewing. Participants in this study were 48 boys and 48 girls aged 35 to 69 months and all were enrolled in the Stanford University nursery school. There was one female experimenter conducting the study and two adults were the models, one male and one female.
Three experimental groups were formed and there was one control group. Real life aggressive models were viewed by one group, these models were then observed showing aggression on film by another group, and the third group watched an aggressive cartoon character (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1988). The control group was not exposed to any of the situations involving the aggressive models. The experimental groups were also divided into males and females so that some participants watched same sex models displaying aggression and the other participants observed the opposite sex.
The models were seen punching the inflatable Bobo doll and hitting it with a mallet (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1988). After the experimental groups had viewed the models’ aggression with the Bobo doll, the participants were observed in a room with a Bobo doll and various other toys to see if they were more or less likely to imitate the models, depending on what aggressive act they viewed.
The findings suggested that children’s aggressive reactions are heightened by exposure to filmed aggression and that the likelihood of aggressive reactions to further frustrations is increased by the observation of models who are displaying aggression on film (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1988). The implications of this study are that social behaviour could be influenced by mass media such as television, supported by the finding that children modelled their behaviour on exposure to aggressive acts on film.
Bandura's Bobo Doll.
Zimbardo (2004)
Zimbardo’s study titled ‘Stanford Prison Experiment: A simulation study of the psychology of imprisonment conducted at Stanford University’ (2004) aimed to investigate the psychological effects of prison life. The participants responded to an advertisement in the paper asking people to participate in a two week study about the psychological effects of prison life. There were a total of 24 male participants who were randomly assigned to either be a guard or a prisoner.
The participants in this study were all ‘arrested’ and taken to the ‘Stanford Prison’ located in the basement of the Stanford psychology department building. All participants who were prisoners were identified by numbers and wore stockings over their hair in order to take away any individuality they may have had. Neither the guards nor prisoners were told what to do or how to act (Zimbardo, 2004).
The participants started to take on their stereotypical roles of guards and prisoners more and more as the experiment continued. The guards became increasingly aggressive towards the prisoners, causing some of the prisoners to become extremely emotional and stressed out (Zimbardo, 2004). The findings of this study indicate that it was difficult to distinguish where the participants’ roles ended and where their personal identities began. The findings also suggest that the prisoners who had high authoritarianism were able to endure the prison environment for longer than those who did not (Zimbardo, 2004). The guards basically won complete control of the whole prison and were aggressive towards the prisoners as a form of controlling the prison environment. As a result of the participants becoming so involved in their stereotypical roles, the experiment had to be terminated after only six days.
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment.
Milgram (2003)
Milgram’s (2003) study titled ‘Behavioural Study of Obedience’ investigated how far a person would go when inflicting harm through electric shocks as instructed by another person. The participants in this study were recruited through mail solicitation and through a newspaper advertisement. There were a total of 40 participants aged between 20 and 50.
There was an experimenter and a victim, and the participants took on the role as teacher. The participants were asked to read out questions for the victim to answer, who then pressed one of four switches to indicate his answer which appeared on the shock generator (Milgram, 2003). Participants were then instructed to shock the victim for every incorrect answer, increasing the voltage each time. Voltage ranged from ‘slight shock’ to ‘danger sever shock’.
The findings of this study indicated that although the participants showed distress at having to harm another person through the aggressive act of giving the victim an electric shock, they still continued to do so as instructed by the experimenter. The implications of this study are that participants experienced extreme conflict due to two very strong behaviour dispositions; people learn not to harm others and know it is wrong and they also know to obey people who are perceived as having legitimate authority over others (Milgram, 2003).
Milgram’s Obedience Study.
Dovidio & Gaertner (2000)Dovidio and
Gaertner’s (2000) study titled ‘Aversive Racism and Selection Decisions: 1989 and 1999’ looked at the self-reported racial prejudice and bias in employment selection decisions involving candidates who were black and white. There were a total of 194 participants in this study, 48 white male undergraduates and 64 white female graduates who participated as part of their course requirement.
Participants were required to rate candidates on a scale of one to ten as to whether they were suitable for the position, being strongly qualified, ambiguous or weak. The results of this study showed that stereotyping and prejudice against black people occurred when their qualifications for the position were ambiguous (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000). The participants reported no prejudice against the black candidate when their qualifications were highly suitable or entirely inappropriate. The implications of these results are that it shows aversive racism and prejudice may stem from inter-group biases, moreover, biases that are based on social categorisation processes (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000).
Explanation of Rankings
The four studies discussed above are all important regarding stereotyping, prejudice and aggression so I found it quite difficult to rank them in order of what I consider most important. I ranked Bandura, Ross and Ross’s study (1988) in first place because it provides a classic example of how children model their behaviour on watching others performing particular behaviours. The study revealed that aggressive and violent images watched by children on television are very likely to be copied by children in real life.
Zimbardo’s study (2004) was ranked in second place as it demonstrates just how aggressive people can become when taking on a stereotypical role. The guards took control of the prisoners and the whole prison environment through aggressive acts demonstrating to the prisoners they were to comply or suffer the consequences.
I ranked Milgram’s study (2003) in third place because it provides insight into how far a person will go to harm another person when they feel they are forced to comply with an authority figure. This could be used to help explain why so many Germans followed Hitler and the Nazi’s during World War Two.
In fourth place I ranked Dovidio and Gaertner’s study (2000). Their results indicated that inter-group biases could play a role in prejudice and aversive racism. When black candidates were highly suitable for a position or not suitable at all, racism and prejudice did not occur. However, when the candidate’s suitability for the position was ambiguous, participants demonstrated prejudice against them.
Conclusion
There have been many classical social psychological experiments conducted which reveal important understandings about prejudice, stereotyping and aggression. To choose just four of them to reflect what I consider the most important studies proved to be quite difficult. Eventually, I narrowed it down to Bandura, Zimbardo, Milgram, and Dovidio and Gaertner. Bandura’s imitation of aggressive models was ranked first because it highlights just how much aggression on television can influence children’s behaviour, and Milgram’s behavioural study of obedience was ranked second because it stresses the importance of an authoritative figure when being instructed to impose harm on another person through aggressive acts. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment was in third place because it revealed how participants became so involved in their stereotypical roles that it was hard to distinguish where their roles ended and personal identities began. Finally, I ranked Dovidio and Gaertner’s aversive racism study in fourth place because it revealed important understandings about prejudice and racism when rating black candidates’ suitability for employment.
Summary Table
References Bandura, A., Ross, D. & Ross, S.A. (1988). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. Readings in Social Psychology (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. pp. 159-168.
Dovidio, J.F. & Gaertner, S.L. (2000). Aversive racism and selection decisions: 1989 and 1999. Psychological Science, 11 (4), 315-319.
Milgram, S. (2003). Behavioural study of obedience. In Lesko, W. (ed). Readings in Social Psychology (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. pp. 242-252.
Zimbardo, P.G. (1999-2004). Stanford Prison experiment: a simulation study of the psychology of imprisonment conducted at Stanford University. Retrieved July 21, 2004
http://www.prisonexp.org/
Links to Available Articles
Appendix
Self Assessment
1. Theory
For the blog topic I chose, it was a requirement to rank what I consider to be the four most important experiments in terms of understanding and explaining aggression, prejudice and stereotyping. I felt that it was not necessary to use theory for this blog topic as I heavily relied upon the research articles as key background to the topic. It would not have been viable for me to use theory as the word limit was very tight for a topic I could write so much on.
2. Research
I feel that I have demonstrated in my blog that I identified the main research findings of each of the studies pertaining to aggression, prejudice and stereotyping. I also feel that I have demonstrated understanding of the findings of each of the studies, as well as making effective use of these findings through examples relating the findings to other situations e.g. the power of an authority figure.
Readability analysis
Averages
· Sentences per paragraph- 9.4
· Words per sentence- 22.8
· Characters per word- 5.4
Readability
· Passive sentences- 27%
· Flesch reading ease 23.0
· Flesch-Kincaid grade level- 12.0
I have demonstrated use of the APA style of referencing throughout my blog, both with in text referencing and the references cited at the end of the blog. I have also provided a summary table with what I consider to be key points of each of the experiments. I consider my blog to be easy for a reader to read as I have broken it up with subheadings, media resources and the summary table so it is not just one huge page of writing for a reader to battle with, and it follows a logical sequence.
4. Online engagementMy online engagement to date has been somewhat slow. I submitted my blog feed early in the semester and posted a test blog to ensure it was set up correctly but after that I was unsure of where to begin. I was unfamiliar of how the blog ‘culture’ worked because I had never used myspace or facebook or anything like that. At first, I did find the idea of creating blog postings very daunting. I’m not computer illiterate, however, I am by no means anywhere near being a computer genius and the thought of posting links to other web pages and embedding media sources made me quite nervous.
Apart from Blog 1, I made three other blog posts since setting up my blog page;
Bandura’s Bobo Dolls,
Wikipedia Definitions and
Testing Web Links. I also regularly read other people’s blog pages as a lot of what people are contributing is very interesting and relevant to the course.
I would have to say I need to improve my online engagement because I have not commented meaningfully on anyone’s blog page yet, although I hope to do so once Blog 1 has been submitted. I feel I have developed my skills of using a blog page because now I know how to create hyperlinks and even add media resources to my blogs, particularly compared to the start of the semester when I had no idea how to do any of it.
~Sooty & Muffin~ 
