L5: Obedience To Authority Flashcards
What is obedience?
Behaving as instructed by an authority figure
Who tested obedience?
Milgram-1963
Milgram (1963) - procedure part 1
Placed an advert in a newspaper asking for male participants to test the effect of punishment on learning. 40 participants were invited to Yale university. A confederate dressed in a white labcoat was the experimenter. They met the confederate Mr. Wallace who said he had a weak heart. Mr. Wallace was made the learner and the naive participant was the teacher. The teacher had to administer an electric shock everytime Mr. Wallace made a mistake and increase voltage.
Milgram (1963) - procedure part 2
Learner taken to a room and hooked to an electric shock machine and the teacher went to a separate room to the electric shock machine which was fake but very convincing. The controls went upto 450 volts and were marked by how dangerous they were. As the shocks increased, Mr. Wallace screamed and asked to go. After 300 volts, he went silent which meant he was presumably dead. The experimenter used phrases like you have no choice, you must continue if the participant was reluctant.
Milgram (1963) - findings
100%= participants administering shocks up until 300 volts
65%= participants administering shocks up until 450 volts.
Participants felt highlevels of stress and showed symptoms like sweating trembling and in some extreme cases, hysterical anxious laughter. They were still obedient.
Milgram (963) - evaluation: ethics
They were deceived as they were told the experiment was about memory not obedience. This meant there was a lack of informed consent. They also believed the electric shocks were real but this was necessary to avoid demand characteristics, increasing validity.
Participants were highly distressed and believed they killed Mr. Wallace so they were not protected from psychological harm, but Milgram did not expect his participants to obey so this could not have been prevented.
They were told you can’t leave, violating right to withdraw.
He did not break the guideline protection from physical harm.
Milgram(1963) - evaluation: cost-benefit analysis
After conducting a cost-benefit analysis on milgram’s experiment, the study was declared worth while due to its valuable findings. The participants also claimed they were happy to have taken part (84%) and they learnt something important. There was also no long term emotional disturbances.
Milgram (1963) - evaluation: sample
Unrepresentative - all White American males. Results can not be generalised to women(gender bias) or other cultures (cultural bias), but this study has been replicated with women and obedience rates were not significantly different, increasing validity.
Milgram (1963) - findings
100%= participants administering shocks up until 300 volts 65%= participants administering shocks up until 450 volts.
