burger: contemporary study 2009 replicating milgram Flashcards
aims
- to see whether milgrams findings were era bound
- to see if obedience is affected by gender as well as the personality traits ‘empathic concern’ and ‘desire for personal control’
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.
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.
In the “model refusal” condition, a second confederate pretends to be a second teacher. This teacher delivers the shocks, with the naïve participant watching. At 90V the confederate teacher turns to the naïve participant and says “I don’t know about this.” He refuses to go on and the experimenter tells the naïve participant to take over delivering the shocks.
Burger used questionnaires to measure individual differences that might be factors in obedience:
Interpersonal Reactivity Index is a 28-question test that measures empathy - how sensitive you are to other people’s feelings
Desirability of Control Scale is a 20-question test that measures locus of control - how important is it for you to be in control of events in your life.
– Burger also used ethical controls that improved on Milgram’s original:
There was a two-step screening process to filter out anyone who might be unduly stressed by the experience
The participants were warned 3 times in writing that they could withdraw at any point and still keep the $50
The experimenter was actually a clinical psychologist, skilled in spotting and reacting appropriately to distress
The “test shock” experienced by the participants was only a mild 15V, not Milgram’s painful 45V
Burger did not allow time to pass before he introduced the (healthy) learner and debriefed the participants
conclusion
Burger concludes that Milgram’s results still stand half a century later. People are still influenced by situational factors to obey an authority figure, even if it goes against their moral values
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.
Burger also compared men and women but didn’t find a difference in obedience. Women were slightly less likely to obey in the “model refusal” condition but this was not statistically significant.
Empathy did not make a significant difference to obedience. However, in the base condition, those who stopped at 150V or sooner did have a significantly higher locus of control (but this was not the case in the “model refusal” condition)
generalisability
Burger’s sample of 70 people is larger than Milgram’s sample of 40. It covers a wider age range (Milgram recruited 20-50 year olds, Burger 20-81 year olds) and two thirds of Burger’s sample were women, whereas Milgram’s were all male.
However, when you add up all Milgram’s samples across all his Variations, there are much more than 70 and Milgram did test women in Variation #8.
Burger also excluded a lot of people from his final sample; for example people with emotional issues or some education in Psychology. This may have affected the results and Milgram used a wider range of types of people.
reliability
Milgram’s original procedure is very reliable because it can be replicated. In 1974, Milgram published the results of his 19 Variations, which all replicated his baseline 1963 study. Burger is replicating aspects of Variation #5 (heart condition to test for empathy) and Variation #17 (model refusal) as well as Variation #8 (testing women). Burger followed Milgram’s script wherever possible and used the same confederates every time.
By filming the whole thing, Burger adds to the inter-rater reliability because other people can view his participants’ behaviour and judge obedience for themselves.
application
The study demonstrates how obedience to authority works and this can be used to increase obedience in settings like schools, workplaces and prisons. Authority figures should wear symbols of authority (uniforms) and justify their authority with reference to a “greater good”.
Testing people for locus of control might identify those most likely to be disobedient – people with a strong need to be in control are less likely to take orders. Social Impact Theory suggests strategies for increasing the pressure on these people to be obedien
validity
+ none of burgers participants had knowledge of milgrams research enhancing internal validity. and demand characteristics were not a problem.
- the study has been questioned about the contrived setting. means they guessed the aim of the study and so could well be more obedient because they know its not real. However, stopping the study at 150V may be invalid. Perhaps participants who were prepared to go to 165V would still have dropped out later. It is a huge assumption to say they would have continued to 450V. The “model refusal” group, in particular, might have had second thoughts as the shocks got stronger.
ethics
+ there were more ethical considerations in comparison. eg screening for mental health and conducted a clinical interview. therefore burger did ensure that they were psychologically healthy. burger did not go beyond 150v and so this is more ethical than milgram.
Nonetheless, there are still ethical criticisms. Burger deceived his participants just as Milgram had done – the shocks weren’t real, the learner’s cries were a tape recording, the learner and second teacher were confederates. He did not get informed consent (as with Milgram, this was advertised as a memory study), although he did debrief participants afterwards. The BPS Ethical Guidelines say participants must not be distressed; even though no one was reduced to tears, the procedure was surely distressing for at least some participants
