3. How is society guided by status… ?
• Society is organized around statuses
(positions)
• We know what role to play by the status we
(and those around us) hold
• Statuses are influenced by culture/social
class/social institutions
4. Status (Position)
• Any position that you occupy in society
• Teacher, student, friend, parent, spouse, etc.
• Ascribed/Achieved/Master
• Status Symbols
5. You are your status
• How do your behaviors and attitudes
change as your status changes? (e.g.
student to friend)
• What are the status symbols associated
with each position?
6. Stanford Prison Experiment
“at the end of only six days, we had to close down
our mock prison because what we saw was
frightening” – Phillip Zimbardo
Great example of the power of social structure:
• how situations place people in roles
• and how people subsequently become
transformed (doing things they would never
think of doing outside of those roles)
7. • Research interest: what does it mean,
psychologically, to be a prisoner or a prison
guard?
• Research Method: Experiment
• Participants: out of 70 men recruited
through ad in Palo Alto newspaper, about 2
dozen men selected
• Participant Motivation: $$$ ($15/day)
8. • Findings: We underestimate the power of
situation control over human behavior
because
a.) they are often nonobvious and subtle
b.) we can often avoid entering situations in
which we might be so controlled and
c.) we label as “weak” or “deviant” people in
those situations who behave differently than
we believe we would
9. • Status: Guard/Prisoner
• Status Symbols
• In less than a week, this experiment undid a
lifetime of socialization (human values, self
concepts)
• Experiment
