Evaluation of Meeus and Raaijmaker

Question 1

Ecological validity?

Answer 1

-Could be argued that it was fairly true to real life situations

Question 2

Validity?

Answer 2

• High in experimental validity as most participants said in the follow up that they believed in the set up
• External validity is questionable as it was a lab experiment and so behavior may have resulted from unusual request to fire insults at a stranger, it could be argued that if the participant did not know they were part of a study the disobedience would have been higher

Question 3

Generalisability?

Answer 3

questionable because they used a volunteer sample so the sample may not be representative of the whole population (would only include readers of specific newspapers or more compliant and obedient people)

Question 4

Reliability?

Answer 4

-Good standardized procedure

Question 5

Ethics?

Answer 5

• Many of the participants said they did not like delivering insults which could of caused some psychological stress
• Study deceived the participants so no informed consent was gained
• The participants were debriefed

Question 6

Application

Answer 6

Demonstrate that Milgrams finding were not culture or era bound
- Also supports Agency theory as it showed when the authority figure was not as regarded less obedience was shown