Milgram

Question 1

Milgram: What was the aim?

Answer 1

How far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person

Question 2

Milgram: What was the background

Answer 2

‘Germans are different’ hypothesis

Question 3

Milgram: What was the design?

Answer 3

Controlled observation, in a lab, self report

Question 4

Milgram: IV and DV

Answer 4

No IV
DV: The voltage given to the Learner

Question 5

Milgram: Sample

Answer 5

Self-selected - Newspaper Ad
Yale University - Connecticut - USA
40 Males - Ages 20-50
Range of occupation and backgrounds
Paid $4

Question 6

Milgram: Apparatus

Answer 6

Room One: Shock Generator - 15-450 Volts - example shock of 45V to the ppts.
Room Two: Electric Chair

Question 7

Milgram: Describe the three roles

Answer 7

Experimenter - 31 year old biology teacher - grey technicians coat
Learner - Actor
Teacher - All ppts assigned teacher

Question 8

Milgram: What were the participants told about the shocks?

Answer 8

‘Although shocks can be extremely painful, but would cause no permanent damage’

Question 9

Milgram: What happened at 300 Volts

Answer 9

Learner would pound against the wall and stay silent - not respond

Question 10

Milgram: What were the prods?

Answer 10

Please continue
The experiment requires you to continue
It is absolutely essential that you continue
You have no other choice but to continue

Question 11

Milgram: Results

Answer 11

Quantitative:
100% of Participants shocked up to 300 Volts
65% (26/40) went up to 450 Volts

Qualitative:
‘He’s banging in there, I’m gonna chicken out. I’d like to continue but I can’t do that to a man…I’m sorry I can’t do that to a man. I’ll hurt his heart. You take your money.’

Question 12

Milgram: Conclusions

Answer 12

People are surprisingly obedient to authority
Demonstrated the power of the situation in obedience rather than dispositional factors - Germans are not different
A significant number of participants were disobedient (14)

Question 13

Milgram: Validity

Answer 13

Low Ecological Validity: Takes place in lab
Low Population Validity: Only Males between 20-50, in the US but from a range of backgrounds
Face Validity: The participants were Deceived - told it was a study on memory - low face validity
Construct Validity: tests nature vs nurture and the ‘Germans are different’ - proved his hypothesis wrong (Germans not different - situation effects behaviour)
Concurrent Validity: Low as this was the first experiment of this sort to have been done

Question 14

Milgram: Reliability

Answer 14

Inter-Rater Reliability: experimenter dressed and acted the same, same prods, the voltages were the same and order of the method was the same - every participant experienced the same test
Inter-Observer Reliability: Low - one observer and it was the same observer in each experiment - no one to compare answers
Test-Retest Reliability: he only tested each participant once
Split-Half Reliability: Not in Milgram - could not
do it twice because they find out about the deception but could look at the Qual data before and after 300V

Question 15

Milgram: Methodology

Answer 15

+ Controlled - gets rid of extraneous variables
- Some demand characteristics - self selected sample - new they were in an experiment - wasn’t told the full experiment though

Question 16

Milgram: Ethnocentrism

Answer 16

Only Americans - Individualist Culture

Question 17

Milgram: Sampling Bias

Answer 17

+ Range of occupations and background
+ Met target population therefore could somewhat be generalized to obedience
- Only Males - limits generalizability

Question 18

Milgram: Ethics

Answer 18

Deception: Participants were under the impression the study was about memory, Participants thought the electric shocks were genuine, Participants thought they had an equal chance of becoming either the teacher or the learner

Deception meant informed consent was not given

Psychological Harm: Participants visibly distressed, trembling, sweating, stuttering, nervous laughter, digging fingernails into palm of hands, 3 participants had uncontrolled seizures and many asked to stop (Qualitative data)

They were debriefed but some participants took 12months to actually have been debriefed.

However, Confidentiality of Participants were given

Question 19

Milgram: Why did people obey?

Answer 19

Location - Yale
Paid $4.50
Told the shocks weren’t dangerous