Bartels & Hendriks: Ordinary people and extraordinary evil ch.4

Question 1

How did Milgram explain his controversial findings?

Answer 1

With the agentic state: people see themselves only as an agent obeying orders from the authority

Question 2

On which things do people focus when they are in the agentic state?

Answer 2

Focus on performing technical aspects of tasks and not on making decisions

Question 3

What significant issue was later discovered with the original Milgram study?

Answer 3

Demand characteristics: many participants suspected that the shocks were fake

People would be more likely to obey if they didn’t think the shocks were real

Question 4

What type of validity was threatened in the Milgram experiment concerning the environment? Why is this threatened in this experiment?

Answer 4

Ecological validity: questioning how generalizable the results are outside of the laboratory

Threatened, because most people assume that participants won’t be harmed in a laboratory

Question 5

Which 5 factors decreased obedience in the Milgram study?

Answer 5

1. Have less physical distance between learner and teacher
2. When experimenter was not in the laboratory
3. When the experiment was not conducted at university
4. When 2 authorities give conflicting demands
5. When someone models disobedience

Question 6

How was the internal validity threatened?

Answer 6

Confounds, such as the wording of the prods (please continue, the experiment requires you to continue, you have no other choice go on etc.)

As long as the experimenter doesn’t do anything to disrupt our assuption about the integrity of the scientific study, we can expect considerable obedience. (so the experimenter shouldn’t say you have no other choice go on)

Question 7

What factor may explain why people were often willing to comply with the orders? Which hypothesis fits with this?

Answer 7

The shocks were increased gradually

Momentum hypothesis

Question 8

What is the momentum hypothesis?

Answer 8

People gain commitment and justify the task when the shocks are increased gradually

Question 9

What is the moral disengagement theory?

Answer 9

People are more likely to commit immoral acts when they feel that they are not the ones who are responsible

Question 10

What is the social identity theory?

Answer 10

The idea that people are likely to obey orders when they personally relate to the experimenter

Question 10

Milgram’s studies suggest that we need to be aware of the argument from authority fallacy. What is that?

Answer 10

Accepting arguments that are based solely on a person’s authority

Question 11

What is the appeal to nature fallacy?

Answer 11

The fact that something natural is not by itself a basis for evaluating its goodness

Question 12

What is the naturalistic fallacy?

Answer 12

The fact that something natural is morally right

Question 13

What is the subjectivist fallacy?

Answer 13

Reasoning on the other side of the coin

‘That may be true for others, but not for me’

Question 14

What is the ‘two wrongs make a right fallacy’? Give an example with the Stanford prison study

Answer 14

We justify research like the Stanford experiment by saying the suffering of participants in Milgram’s study is justified because other experiments (stanford) put participants through worse

Question 15

What is a tu quoque (you too) fallacy?

Answer 15

Those who conducted ethically questionable studies would be in the position to qrgue that those criticizing them have themselves engaged in ethically questionable practices

It destracts from logically evaluating arguments about ethics of research

Question 16

What was the issue of debriefing in Milgram’s study?

Answer 16

Critics think the debriefing wasn’t enough for the strong emotional conflict in the participants.

Sometimes participants weren’t debriefed at all