Core Study 1- Milgram (S)

Question 1

What is an authority figure?

Answer 1

A person who has a real or perceived higher status than another.

Question 2

What is obedience?

Answer 2

When you follow an order/ request from an authority figure.

Question 3

What is disobedience?

Answer 3

When you refuse to follow and order/ request from an authority figure

Question 4

What are situational factors?

Answer 4

Factors in our environment as opposed to our individual characteristics

Question 5

Background

What is Milgram’s background and reasoning for research?

Answer 5

He was a member of a European Jewish family with an interest in the psychology behind the holocaust.
He wanted to see if their culture was the reason for high levels of obedience (dispositional factor)

Question 6

Aim

What was the aim of Milgram’s study?

Answer 6

To investigate how obedient people are to following orders from a person in authority

in context- (administering electric shocks that would result in pain and harm to another person)

Question 7

Method

What was the experimental design of Milgram’s study?

Answer 7

-controlled observation since there was only one condition

Question 8

Method

What was the dependent variable and how was it operationalised?

Answer 8

obedience- operationalised as the maximum voltage given in response to order

Question 9

Sample

What did the sample consist of and how were they selected?

age, gender, quantity, how they were selected, where they were from

Answer 9

-40 males
-between 20- 50
-from New Haven, Connecticut
-collected from newspaper advertisement
-took place at Yale University

Question 10

Procedure

How much were participants paid for taking part?

Answer 10

$4.50

Question 11

Procedure

How were roles distributed between the learner and teacher pair?

Answer 11

Both paper slips said teacher- the confederate acted as the ‘learner’ and the participant always acted as the teacher

It was rigged

Question 12

Procedure (ethics)

How was deception integrated in the study?

2 ways

Answer 12

-participants told they would not cause any lasting tissue damage from giving out shocks
-participants told they were taking part in a study of memory and effects of punishment on learning

Question 13

Procedure

What did the learner and teacher have to with the word pairs?

Answer 13

-learner had to learn word pairs (teacher read out first word, learner had to give next three by flicking the corresponding switch)

Question 14

Procedure

What happened if the answer given was incorrect?

Answer 14

The teacher gave a shock by flicking a switch on a shock generator (voltage increased in 15v increments from 15v-450v every time an answer was wrong)

Question 15

Procedure

What are the benefits of having standardised answers from the learner once a shock was given?

Answer 15

teacher responses can be easily analysed, reliability is increased

Question 16

Procedure

What happened once the shock generator reached 315v?

Answer 16

Teacher recieved no pain response, unlike the previous shocks, leaving assumption that learner was unconscious/ dead

This breaks ethical issue of protection from harm (physical and emotional)

Question 17

Procedure

What 4 verbal prods did the experimenter frequently use to convince the teachers to carry on?

Answer 17

-“Please continue. Please go on.”
-“You have no choice, you must go on.”
-“It is absolutely essential that you continue.”
-“The experiment requires you to continue.”

Question 18

Procedure

How were participants debriefed at the end of the study?

Answer 18

They recieved full explanation of true nature of experiment and were interviewed using open-ended questions and attitude scales to make sure they left in a state of well-being

Question 19

Results

What quantitative results were gathered from the study?

Answer 19

100% particpants continued to 300volts (enough to kill you)
65% participants continued to full 450volts
26 participants= obedient, 14= disobedient/ defiant

Question 20

Results

What qualitative results were gathered from the study?

Answer 20

-many participants showed signs of extreme stress (sweating, shaking, laughing nervously etc)
-3 participants had full blown seizures

Question 21

Results

What did the 14 university students who predicted levels of obedience predict results would be?

Answer 21

predicted obedience would be low- only 3% would continue to the end

Question 22

Conclusions

Did findings support the dispositional hypothesis or the situational hypothesis?

Answer 22

Situational- How aspects of social processes could influence a person

Question 23

Conclusions

Give some possible reasons for obedience that Milgram identified.

9 in total

Answer 23

-carried out in respectable environment (Yale uni)
-Legitimacy (worthwhile)
-volunteer and were paid= obligation to obey
-from teacher’s perspective- they may have been just as unlucky to be the learner and endured shocks
-rights to withdraw= unobvious
-told shocks weren’t dangerous
-learner appeared comfortable for first 300v