Explanations for obedience (lesson 4) Flashcards
A01 A03
why did Milgram decide to complete his experiment
after the holocaust, Milgram decided to research why Hitlers orders had been followed by the German people. he designed a study that would test obedience
what is the difference between obedience and conformity
conformity is the act of following the ways of a group to fit in, look intellectual, and possibly because you agree with a group’s view. however, obedience contains an authoritative figure meaning people obey for reasons such as gaining respect from those of higher status. For example, conformity may be following the group despite their wrong doings. and obedience may be something like soldiers following orders of those above despite its immorality.
describe the procedure of milgrims experiment
40 male 20-50-year-old volunteers answered newspaper ads for a study on how punishment affects learning. at the start of the experiment, they were introduced to a confederate that they thought was another random individual. the selection of either being the teacher or the student was rigged so that the participant always got the teacher.
a known confederate also came into the room dressed in a lab coat, he was described as the experimenter. the participant watched this individual strap the other confederate into a chair in a separate room and attached to electrodes. then the real pps was told to deliver shocks each time the learner got a question wrong. starting at 15 volts and increasing by 15 volts all the way up to 450 volts. at 300 volts the learner made a noise and refused to go on, after 315 volts the learner stopped making noise, indicating unconsciousness or death. 300 volts was also labeled severe shock. (all shocks were fake)
if the participants resisted the experimenter encouraged them to continue with prompts such as “you have no other choice, you must go on”
what type of sampling was used in this experiment
volunteer sampling
what were the findings of the experiment
all participants continued up to 300 volts, 12.5 percent stopped at 300 volts and 65 percent of participants went up to the full 450 volts
what were the participants offered for an hour of their time
From the article
“WE WILL PAY YOU £4.00 FOR AN HOUR OF YOUR TIME”
why did the article for the experiment ask for individuals with no special training and in jobs such as factory work, barbers and clerks
because they looked for people with jobs in lower social status than the experimenter of the study so authority was applied.
what did Milgram think was happening when the participants kept on turning around to the experimenter during the procedure
the teacher kept on turning around and asking questions, this was because of our human nature to find ways to share the responsibility to limit stress. once this had happened often they continued as the experimenter told them he took full responsibility for what happened, despite them being to ones in control.
what happened after the experiment was completed or ended due to resistance.
there was a full debrief and explanation of what had happened. 80 percent of them were happy to know that they learned something about themselves.
what were the ethical concerns with the experiment
within Milgram study, there are many ethical concerns. for example, there was large amounts of deception which meant people were not expecting the level of psychological harm they would cause. however, after the experiment, there was a serious debriefing and explanation. and 80 percent of the participants were happy with the experiment happening. As well as this he had nothing that mentioned informed consent or a written right to withdraw. meaning people may have felt they had to complete the study because they were being paid for it. however, this deception made the experiment accurate with less chance of demand characteristics.
how did the study lack internal validity
it lacked internal validity as it only used male participants which meant it couldn’t represent the wider community, however, the experiment was repeated with female participants, and the same results were received.
what supporting research was supplied by Hofling
Hofling demonstrated that 21 out of 22 nurses in a real hospital ward would obey orders over the phone from a Dr smith to give 20mg of an unfamiliar drug at twice the daily maximum. as this was also conducted in a real-world setting it had much higher mundane realism and ecological validity as the task was familiar and the location was normal.
what supporting research was there by Sheridan and king
participants were asked to give real shocks to a puppy and the results were similar to milgrams. 54 percent of males gave 100 percent fatal shocks to the puppy. in this case, there was low demand characteristics as the shocks were real making it more believable to participants
