contemporary study: Burger (2009)

Question 1

describe Burger’s study’s aims

Answer 1

• to replicate Milgram’s experiment whilst adhering to the ethical guidelines to see if people would be obedient today (2009)
• to see if personality variables like empathy and locus of control influence obedience
• to see if the presence of a ‘disobedient’ model makes a difference to obedience levels

Question 2

what did Burger predict would happen in his experiment?

Answer 2

‘despite the large time gap and changes in society I’ll find a similar obedience rate’

Question 3

why did Burger choose the maximum volt level to be 150v?

Answer 3

• Burger saw this as the point of no return.
  in variation 5 of Milgram’s experiment all the pt’s who rebelled against authority dropped out by 150v.
• variation 5 was the condition where Mr Wallace (the learner) complained about his heart bothering him at 150v
  -all the pt’s who were still obedient after 150v stayed until the end of450v so there was no need to make it any higher than 150v

Question 4

what type of sample did Burger use?
how did people respond?

Answer 4

• self select / volunteer sample
• people responded by telephone or email to advertisements in local newspapers/libraries

Question 5

give 4 ways Burger made his study more ethical

Answer 5

• reduced the voltage from 450v to 150v
• gave all pt’s a screening test to check their mental health
• gave the pt’s the right to withdraw, twice on paper and once in person to make sure they fully understood they had the right to withdraw
• he only gave the pt’s a 15v sample shock rather than a 45v one

Question 6

what is the IV of Burger’s experiment?

Answer 6

iv is manipulated
whether its a base condition or wherever a rebellious partner is in the room

Question 7

what type of design is this study?

Answer 7

independent groups

Question 8

what is the dv of this study?

Answer 8

dv= measure
the same as milgram
obedience is measured by how many volts is given by the teacher

Question 9

describe Burger’s sample

Answer 9

• 70 pt’s compared to Milgram’s 40
• aged 20-81 compared to Milgram’s 20-50
• 41 females, 29 males
• paid $50 before the study started compared to Milgram’s being paid after which critics say may have influenced them to keep going to get paid
• Burger actually recruited a lot more pt’s but screened them out:
• he dropped volunteers who had heard of Milgram’s original experiment, who had studied psychology for more than 2 years, who had anxiety issues or drug dependency because they may get more distressed

Question 10

describe the 2 step screening process

Answer 10

screening 1: a telephone call from a research assistant where they were asked:
- to find out who would react badly to the experiment
- to find out who might be familiar with the experiment

screening 2: at the Santa Clara University Campus they had:
- questions about mental health. eg. the Beck anxiety inventory was applied
- interviews with further questions regarding sustainability

Question 11

describe experiment 1 (baseline condition)

Answer 11

• Burger stops the experiment at 150v instead of proceeding to 450v
• immediately after the experiment ends participants are debriefed in a similar way to Milgram’s experiment. they were told that the shocks were not real and were introduced to the confederate

Question 12

describe experiment 2 (modelled refusal condition)

Answer 12

• this broadly follows the same procedure as the baseline condition but uses 2 confederates so there is:
  a confederate as teacher 1. a confederate as the learner and a real participant as teacher 2
• at 75 volts teacher 1 hesitated after hearing the learner grunt
• at 90 volts teacher 1 says ‘I don’t know about this’. teacher 1 is prompted by the experimenter but they refuse to carry on and push their chair back from the table
• the experimenter tells teacher 2 to continue with the experiment
• if they continue then the experiment is ended at 150v

Question 13

what are the results of experiment 1 (baseline) ?

Answer 13

70% went to 150v

Question 14

what are the results of experiment 2 (modelled refusal condition) ?

Answer 14

63% went to 150v

Question 15

what can we conclude from these results?

Answer 15

• the results are similar to Milgram’s ( from over 45 years ago)
• time and cultural changes haven’t had an effect on obedience
• therefore, situational factors such as legitimate authority are the most important factor in influencing whether or not individuals obey

Question 16

generalisability

Answer 16

• Burger’s sample of 70 is a lot larger than Milgram’s sample of 40 and covers a wider age range and had women so is more generalisable
• Burger however also excluded a lot of people from his final sample eg. people with emotional issues or had studied psychology for longer than 2 years which may have effected the results (Milgram used a more diverse sample)
• this suggests that the sample used in Burger’s study was to psychologically ‘robust’ to represent the wider population

Question 17

reliability

Answer 17

• Milgram’s original procedure is very reliable because it can be replicated. Burger replicates aspects of variation 5 (heart condition), variation 8 (testing women) and variation 17 (model refusal)
• by filming the whole experiment Burger adds to the inter-rate reliability because others can view the participants behaviour and judge obedience for themselves

Question 18

application

Answer 18

• 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’.
• can be used to test people for locus of control

Question 19

validity

Answer 19

• the study can be seen as valid as the participants were paid fully in advance. we can be fairly sure it was social pressure that made them continue shocking, not a cost/benefit calculation about whether they would personally lose or gain money
• there’s a very large assumption that 150v would be the same as 450v. the model refusal group in particular may have had second thoughts as the shocks got stronger

Question 20

ethics

Answer 20

• Burger believes his study avoids the ethical problems of Milgram’s original. Burger screened out pt’s who were likely to be distressed by the study and the experimenter was a trained clinical psychologist who could identify signs of distress and would stop the experiment if anyone seemed to be disturbed by what was happening.
• test shock reduced from 45v to 15v and study stopped at 150v instead of 450v
• however, there still is deception