Burger Flashcards
Aim
To find out if the same results as Milgram’s 1963 study re-occur when the study is replicated with modern participants in 2009. Also, to see if personality variables like empathy and locus of control influence obedience. Finally, to see if the presence of a disobedient “model” makes a difference to obedience levels.
Sample
70 participants (a mixture of men and women) did the experiment, being randomly put into the two conditions. They were a volunteer sample, recruited through newspaper and online ads and fliers left in libraries. They were paid $50 before the study started. They were aged 20-81.
Burger actually recruited a lot more participants but screened many of them out. He dropped volunteers who had heard of Milgram’s original experiment, who had attended more than 2 Psychology classes, who had anxiety issues or drug dependency. It was a two-step screening process: those with psychological knowledge were screened at the start before even attending; those with drug or emotional issues were screened through a questionnaire when they arrived (but they still got paid, even though they didn’t do the study!).
Procedure
The procedure replicates Milgram’s variation #5 on his baseline study. The experimenter is a white man in his 30s; the confederate (learner) is in his 50s.
The script resembles Milgram’s but the test shock that the participant receives is only 15V rather than Milgram’s painful 45V. The participant/teacher watches the learner being strapped into the electric chair and then sits at the shock generator in an adjacent room.
The teacher reads out 25 multiple choice questions and the learner uses a buzzer to indicate the answer. If the answer is wrong, the experimenter directs the teacher to deliver a shock, starting at 15V and going up in 15V intervals.
The learner indicates he has a “slight heart condition” but the experimenter replies that the shocks are not harmful. At 75V the learner starts making sounds of pain. At 150V the learner cries that he wants to stop and complains about chest pains.
If the teacher moves to deliver the 165V shock, the experimenter stops the experiment.
Results
Burger found that 70% of participants in the baseline condition were prepared to go past 150V, compared to 82.5% in Milgram’s Variation #5. This sounds like a big difference but it is not statistically significant given the number of people involved.
