Burger

Question 1

what was the aim?

Answer 1

to see whether Milgram’s findings were era-bound

Question 2

what was the design?

Answer 2

independent groups design

Question 3

who were the participants?

Answer 3

• 70 adults
  29 men
  41 women
• aged between 20-81
• 55% white
  4% black afro-american
  60% had university degrees

Question 4

how were the participants obtained?

Answer 4

through flyers at libraries, farmers markets, coffee shops and community centres

Question 5

what were the safeguards Burger put in place?

Answer 5

• he stopped the shocks at 150V (79% of those who went to 150V went to 450V in Milgram’s so he could predict)
• a two-step screening process to ensure ppts were mentally fit
• ppts were given three reminders (2X in writing)
• mild 15v shock given to ppts rather than 45v from milgrams
• ppts were debriefed immediately

Question 6

what did the questionnaires measure?

Answer 6

1) empathetic concern - tendency to experience feelings of sympathy
2) desire for personal control - how motivated a person is to see themselves in control of the events in their lives

Question 7

what were the findings?

Answer 7

-the obedience rate was only slightly lower than Milgram’s (70% compared to 82.5%)
-no significant difference between men and women although women were slightly more likely to press 150v (73% compared to 67% men)
- no significant difference in empathetic concern scores between defiant and obedient ppts

Question 8

what is a strength of burger’s study?

Answer 8

none of burgers’ ppts had prior knowledge of milgram’s experiment = increased internal validity
this suggests that demand characteristics were not a problem

Question 9

what is a weakness of burger’s study?

Answer 9

the sample is not representative of the target population
-38% of volunteers were deselected as they may have found it too distressing
the people in the final study may have been more psychologically robust than the general population

Question 10

what is the competing argument to this?

Answer 10

a recent milgram replication by BEAUVOIS (2012) is arguably more representative as they did not exclude any ppts and done in another country
- 80% obedience rate confirms what burger found

Question 11

how can burger’s study be applied?

Answer 11

Elms argues that burger’s research tells us little about real world obedience and therefore lacks application
- the fact the ppts were stopped before they suffered any real tension about what they were doing meant that the situation lost it’s potency
- this reduces the meaningfulness of the study