8. Obedience: Milgram's Research AO1

Question 1

What participants did Milgram use?

Answer 1

40 male participants aged 20-50 in jobs ranging from unskilled to professional

Question 2

How did Milgram find his participants?

Answer 2

Newspaper ads and postal flyers saying ‘looking for participants for memory study’

Question 3

What did Milgram offer to participants?

Answer 3

$4.50 for turning up

Question 4

Who played the teacher?

Answer 4

A true participant not a confederate like the learner

Question 5

Briefly outline Milgram’s study

Answer 5

• experimenter wore lab coat
• participants could leave at any time
• ‘learner’ strapped in chair in another room
• teacher gave increasing shocks when they made a mistake on task
• not told they were fake shocks or actors

Question 6

What were the levels of shocks used by Milgram?

Answer 6

• started at 15V

- rose through 30 levels to 450V

Question 7

What happened at 300V and again at 315V?

Answer 7

Learner pounded on wall and gave mo response to next question

Question 8

What happened when the teacher turned to experimenter for help?

Answer 8

Gave a standard instruction ‘absence of response to be treated as wrong answer’

Question 9

What 4 ‘prods’ did the experimenter use on the teacher

Answer 9

1. Please continue
2. Experiment requires you to continue
3. Its essential for you to continue
4. You have no other choice, you must go on

Question 10

What were Milgram’s findings

Answer 10

• No participants stopped below 300V
• Five stopped at 300V
• 65% continued to 450V

Question 11

What did observations indicate

Answer 11

• Participants showed signs of extreme tension
• Many were sweating, trembling & digging fingernails into hands
• Three had full blown uncontrollable seizures.

Question 12

What did Milgram do prior to study

Answer 12

Asked 14 psychology students to predict the naive participants behaviour

Question 13

What did the 14 psychology student Milgram asked for a prediction suggest may happen? What can be concluded from this?

Answer 13

• Estimated no more than 3% would continue to 450V

- Therefore findings were unexpected

Question 14

What did Milgram do at the end of his study?

Answer 14

• Debrief participants
• Assure their behaviour was normal
• Conducted a follow up questionnaire

Question 15

What were the findings of Milgram’s follow up questionnaire

Answer 15

• 84% reported they fell glad to have participated

- 74% said they’d learnt something of personal importance