Milgram Flashcards
Agentic state
Pp will blindly do whatever they are told, as the responsibilities of their actions are not on them. Done from the fact that obedience is rewarded - disobedience is punished
Autonomous state
Pp are fully aware of the consequences of their actions, and therefore have more choice
Aim
To see whether Pp would be more obedient to a person of authority. Specifically, if the Pp would be willing to enforce physical harm on such victims. To do this, he arranged a laboratory study involding administering electric shocks to a victim under the orders of a researcher
type of study
Observation
False aim
They were looking to see whether punishment had an effect on how people learn
Number of pp
40
demographic of Pp
- all male
- range of age - 20-50
- all from connecticut, USA
Sampling method
volunteer
Where experiments took place
Yale university
experimenter characteristics + wearing
- wore a grey technician’s coat
- manner was not rude, but stern
- 31 year old highschool teacher of biology
Victim characteristics
47 year-old accountant
- likeable manner
DV
How far each Pp would go down the shock generator
Prods given to Pp to encourage them to continue
- “please continue”
- “the experiment requires that you continue”
- “it’s absolutely essential that you must continue”
- “you have no other choice, you must go on”
Describe the shock generator
- 30 switches
- 15V-450V
- Light shock; moderate shock; strong shock; very strong shock; intense shock; high intensity shock; danger severe shock; XXX
- red light lights in correspondance to shock level, and a blue shock buzz goes off
Obediant operationalisation
- anyone who continued after 300V level
defiant operationalisation
- anyone who broke off before 300V
Example question from after interview
“how painful were the last few shocks that you administered to the learner?”
14-point scale
Link to assumption of social approach
- behaviour, cognitions and emotions can be influenced by other individuals
- Behaviour, cognitions and emtions can be influenced by groups of people, and social contexts
Two surprising findings
- the obedience level: 65%
- How much stress and tension was caused as a result
Conclusions
- people are much more obediant to authoritave figures than we might think
- Despite obedience levels, Pp find following orders extremely stressful
psychology investegated
Disposition or situation?
Agentic and autonomous state
define disposition
A person’s inherent qualities of a mind and character
Milgram’s explaination for such high amounts of obedience shown
- Yale uni, and the purpose of the (false) experiment made it seem legit
- Pp think the victim did this voluntarily
- told that the shock levels are “not dangerous”
Individual or situational?
Both
Nature vs nurture
both - whether Pp listens to the experimenter or the Learner
Generalisability
positive:
- variety of occupants and education levels
- volunteer sample
- range of age (20-50)
Negative:
- all male
- small-ish sample
- all from same area
Reliability
- standardisation of instructions, shock machine, learner responses, prods
- preliminary run to ensure Pp know what they’re doing
- sample shock procedure
Application
- military - knowing that officers will obey instructions from an authoritave figure
- People in hospitals being told to carry out orders that go against their own morals
Validity
Positive
- quantitative and qualitative data used
- participants assured the experiment was real
Negative
- ecological validity
- low mundane realism
- can’t determine causation - observation
Ethics
positive
- right to withdraw
- privacy
- confidentiality
- full debrief
- made an effort to ensure no long term psychological harm
Negative
- deception - false aim
- stress - physical and psychological harm
- right to withdraw - there, but obscured
- no full informed consent
