Cross-cultural Studies of Obedience Flashcards
Shanab and Yahya (Jordan) asked…
… children to give shocks to other children.
What was the conclusion of Shanab and Yahya’s study?
Children are obedient.
Kilham and Mann (Australia) asked…
… students to order pain to be administered, and to administer pain themselves.
What did Kilham and Mann find?
There was a higher level of obedience when ordering pain than when administering it.
Schurz (Austria) asked participants to…
… give bursts of ultrasound (rather than shocks) to a learner.
What did Schurz find?
80% obedience.
What did Mantell & Panzarella (Germany) find?
85% obedience
Mantell & Panzarella used a control group, and concluded that…
… if participants could choose the level of shock to give, none obeyed until the end.
Obedience level in the US?
61%
- (Thomas Blass’s reviews)
Obedience level in countries other than the US?
66%
- (Thomas Blass’s reviews)
Average figures of obedience levels worldwide are…
… very similar.
Obedience levels across cultures are also similar to the results of…
… Milgram’s basic study.
Even if obedience had been different between cultures, other…
… factors (e.g. age, gender, procedure differences) may have caused these differences
What does a similarity of findings in different cultures show?
That people have a powerful tendency to obey authority.
If a conclusion is to be drawn about the effects of cultures, then studies need to…
… have the same procedure and controls.
Why do procedures of studies have to be the same?
To determine whether differences are down to culture, or down to differences in procedures.
When making comparisons, it doesn’t seem likely that…
… culture affects obedience.
