Lesson 5: Obedience to Authority

Question 1

What is obedience? (AO1)

Answer 1

behaving as instructed to by an AUTHORITY figure

Question 2

What do authority figures have?

Answer 2

Power/and or status over others

Question 3

Who investigated obedience to authority figures

Answer 3

Milgram

Question 4

(Procedure) How did Milgram collect his participants?

Answer 4

He placed an advert in a NEWSPAPER asking for male participants to take part in his study about the effects of punishmnent on learning

Question 5

How many participants did Milgram collect?

Answer 5

40

Question 6

Who were the participants greeted by when they were invited to the psychology department in Yale university

Answer 6

They were met by the EXPERIMENTER- a man in a white LABORATORY COAT who was really a confederate

Question 7

Who were they introduced to by the experimenter?

Answer 7

a 47-year-old-man whom they were told was another participant called Mr Wallace

Mr wallace was another CONFEDERATE who PRETENDED to have a weak heart

Question 8

What were the participant and Mr Wallace told to do?

Answer 8

Mr. Wallace and the participant were asked to pick notes out of a hat to determine whether they would play the role of a TEAHER or a LEARNER in the experiment.

It was set up so that Mr. Wallace = learner

naïve participant = the teacher.

Question 9

Where was the teacher taken to?

Answer 9

an adjoining room with the electric shock machine controls AND the EXPERIMENTER

Question 10

What was the naive’s participants task as a teacher?

Answer 10

The teacher’s task was to administer electric shocks for mistakes made by the learner in a memory test, with voltage increasing for each error

Question 11

How was the voltage machine labelled?

Answer 11

Volts rised in increments of 15 with 450V being the HIGHEST

Each group of 4 switches was labelled with texts such as
-Slight shock, MODERATE shock all the way up to DANGER: severe shock

Final switches were marked XXX

Question 12

What happened as the shocks became more severe?

Answer 12

Mr Wallace demanded to be released from the experiment, SCREAMED, kicked the wall and complained about his WEAK HEART

Until he finally went silent

Question 13

What happened when the teacher showed reluctance to shock the learner?

Answer 13

the experimenter prompted him to continue using 1 of thee 4 statements:
“ please continue”
“the experiment requires you continue”
“it is absolutely essential that you continue”
“you have no choice but to continue”

Question 14

Outline the FINDINGS of Milgram’s experiment

Answer 14

100% of participants gave shocks up to 300V
65% = 450v

Participants felt HIGH LEVELS of stress-> sweating, trembling, hysterical laughter

HOWEVER most were obedient and willing to inflict potential lethal shocks on a man with a WEAK HEART

Question 15

State a NEGATIVE evaluation of Milgram’s study
(Hint: Deception + other unethical factors)

Answer 15

Participants were DECEIVED about the true nature of the experiment-> told it was about memory when it was about OBEDIENCE

-Participants led to believe the electric shocks were real + Mr wallace was another participant who had a weak heart

HOWEVER..
Deception was necessary to avoid DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS and therefore increase the VALIDITY of the study

Question 16

State a NEGATIVE evaluation of Milgram’s study
(Hint: Distress+ psychological harm)

Answer 16

• During the experiment the participants =DISTRESSED (some
  became hysterical), and may have even thought that they had KILLED Mr Wallace,
  so they were not protected from PSYCHOLOGICAL harm.

HOWEVER,
Milgram did not expect his participants to OBEY and so this psychological harm could not have been anticipated.

Question 17

State a NEGATIVE evaluation of Milgram’s study into obedience
(Hint: Unrepresentative sample)

Answer 17

• The sample is UNREPRESENTATIVE as all of the participants =white American
  males.

THEREFORE the results CANNOT be generalised to women (gender bias) or
other cultures (cultural bias).

However, this study has since been replicated with women and the obedience rates was not significantly different.

Question 18

State a POSITIVE evaluation of Milgram’s study into obedience
(Hint: cost-benefit analysis)

Answer 18

+ Despite the ethical issues with Milgram’s (1963) study many psychologists feel
that after conducting a COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS (weighing the harm a study has
done against the valuable knowledge is has provided) the study was worthwhile.

We now know that most people could potentially do the same thing, leading to
people taking more responsibility and not blindly following orders.

The participants did not suffer any true LONG TERM EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCES and most (84%) of them said they were happy to have taken part and that they had learnt
something important from the experience.