Contemporary Study Burger

Question 1

What was the aim of Burgers study?

Answer 1

To investigate whether the results of Milgrams original study could reoccur over time.
To investigate whether personality such as locus of control and empathy impacts obedience
To investigate whether the presence of a disobedient ‘model’ changes obedience levels.

Question 2

What was the sample of Burgers study?

Answer 2

-70 participants (men and women)
-Volunteer sample aged between 20-81
-Burger also conducted screening on the participants to filter out those who were vulnerable and those who already knew of Milgrams experiment.

Question 3

Describe the procedure of Burgers Contemporary study

Answer 3

Burger used the same procedure as Milgram’s Original Experiment. The experimenter encourages the participant to shock the student every time they get an incorrect answer. The shocks would increase in 15V intervals.
However, he reduced the highest voltage from 450V to 150V in order to try and protect the participants by minimising psychological harm.
If participants reached the 150V the experiment stopped.

Question 4

What were the variations of Burgers replication of Milgrams experiment?

Answer 4

Variation 5- Learner states that they have a heart condition
Variation 17- A secondary confederate learner is present who encourages the participant to disobey the experimenter.

Question 5

Describe the procedure of Burgers variation 5

Answer 5

The confederate student indicated that they have a heart condition but the experimenter reassures them that the shocks are not harmful.
At 75V the student begins to make sounds of pain
At 150V the student cries out complaining of chest pain

Question 6

Describe the procedure of Burgers Variation 17

Answer 6

The secondary confederate teacher delivers the shocks, however at 90V the teacher turns to the participant and states “I don’t know about this” refusing to continue.
The experimenter orders the participant to continue delivering the shocks.

Question 7

Describe the results of Burgers baseline condition of Variation 5?

Answer 7

70% of participants were prepared to go past 150V compared to 83% of participants who continued past 150V within Milgrams variation 5.

Question 8

Evaluate Burgers Contemporary study (8 marks)

Answer 8

Generalisability- Strength
70 participants male and female aged between 20-81
Therefore, results can represent a larger population than Milgrams

Reliability- Strength
Standardised procedure (same confederate experimenter and student) which followed Milgrams variation, however the highest voltage was reduced to 150V rather than 450V.
Results showed that 70% of participants in Burgers variation went to 150V which was consistent with Milgrams where 83% of participants continued past 150V.
This shows that obedience has not changed over time and supports Milgrams investigation.

Application- Strength and Weakness
The investigation shows that Locus of control can impact obedience, therefore testing people’s locus of control can identify those who are more likely to be disobedient.
Help to provide strategies in order to increase obedience in different settings.
However, it can be argued that as results remained the same over time, the investigation was a waste of money and resources.

Validity- Weakness
Results may not represent the true extent of obedience because of the assumption that participants that reached 150V would have continued all the way to 450V.
Lacking ecological validity because the task is artificial and therefore does not represent how obedient people are in real life.

Ethics- Strength
Participants were protected as those that were vulnerable were filtered out
People were informed of their right to withdraw three times
Debriefed after the experiment
However, Burger still deceived his participants otherwise they would have been impacted by demand characteristics.