1.2.2 Milgram (1963) and situational variables affecting obedience Flashcards
Milgram’s procedure?
/40 American men volunteered to take part in Milgram’s study at Yale University, supposedly on memory
/When each volunteer arrived to take part, they were introduced to another participant (who was a confederate to Milgram)
/The two participants drew lots to see who would be the ‘Teacher’ (T) and who would be the ‘Learner’ (L)
/The draw was fixed, so the genuine participant was always the teacher and the confederate the learner
/An Experimenter (E) was also involved, who was also a confederate and was dressed in a grey lab coat
/One participant, the confederate, was asked to learn a set of word pairs and the teacher would test his knowledge
/They were placed in adjacent rooms and the teacher was positioned in front of a set of controls to administer electric shocks to the learner
/The teacher was instructed to punish the learner with a shock after each incorrect he gave
/When the teacher displayed a reluctance to injure the learner, they were encouraged to continue the procedure
Milgram’s result?
/65% of participants went all the way up to 450 volts (‘danger - severe shock’)
/100% of participants went up to 300 volts (‘intense shock’)
/Many of the participants showed signs of emotional distress e.g. shaking, sweating, groaning, seizures
Milgram’s Conclusion?
/Under the right conditions (e.g. the presence of a legitimate authority; the agentic state) people will commit acts of destructive
obedience towards someone they have just met
/Situational factors may explain destructive obedience
1st Evaluation (PEEL) idea. Positive
Research support (Beauvoir et al 2012)
A French documentary focused on a game show, where participants thought they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new show called Le Jeu De La Mort (The Game of Death)
Participants were paid to give electric shocks ordered by the presenter to other participants in front of a studio audience
The participants who were the receiving the shocks were actors and the shocks were fake
80% of the participants delivered the maximum shock of 460 volts to what appeared to be an unconscious man
Participants’ behaviour was nearly identical to that of Milgram’s participants, they showed signs of anxiety, nervous laughter and nail-biting
This supports Milgram’s original findings of obedience to authority
2nd evaluation (PEEL) idea. Negative
Low internal validity
Martin Orne and Charles Holland (1968) argued that participants were play-acting as they didn’t believe the setup was real
Gina Perry (2013) listened to tapes of Milgram’s participants and reported that only around half of them believed the shocks were real and that two-thirds of them were disobedient
This suggests that participants may have been responding to demand characteristics
However, Charles Sheridan and Richard King (1972) conducted a study using a procedure similar to Milgram’s
Their participants gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders received from the experimenter
Despite the real distress of the animal, 54% of male and 100% of female participants delivered what they believed to be the fatal shock
This supports Milgram’s study and showed genuine results as people behaved obediently, even when the shocks were real
3rd evaluation (PEEL) idea. Negative
Ethical issues
Participants were deceived in multiple ways:
Participants thought the allocation of roles of both Teacher and Learner was random but they were not as Milgram’s confederate was always the learner
Participants believed the electric shocks were real
Milgram debriefed the participants afterward to ensure they understood the real intentions of the experiment
Points of the situational variable, Proximity.
Proximity
/In Milgram’s original procedure, the Teacher could hear the Learner but could not see him
/In the proximity variation, both were moved to the same room
/The obedience rate dropped from 65% to 40%
/In the touch proximity variation, the teacher then had to force the /Learners hand onto the electroshock plate
/The obedience rate dropped further to 30%
/In the remote instruction variation, the experimenter left the room and gave instructions by telephone
/The obedience rate dropped to 20.5%
Points of the situational variable, Uniform.
Uniform
/In the uniform variation, the experimenter was called away and replaced by an ‘ordinary member of the public’, meaning they were not wearing the ‘uniform’ of a grey lab coat
/The obedience rate dropped to the lowest of all the variations to 20%
Points of the situational variable, Location.
Location
/Milgram conducted a variation in a run-down office block
/The obedience rate dropped to 47.5%
