Milgram

Question 1

Methodology

Answer 1

Self-selected sampling. Placed an advert in a New Haven Newspaper. The advertisement led people to believe they would be involved in research about memory and learning. The advertisement stated that participants would be paid $4.50 for their participation and that payment was not dependent on their time in the study but that they would receive payment just for coming to the lab. From the people who applied to the research, Milgram selected his sample of 40 males aged 20-50. The participants had a range of jobs from postal clerks to engineers as well as a range of levels of educations from one who didn’t finish primary school to one with a doctorate.

Question 2

Procedures BP

Answer 2

• Took place in a lab at Yale university
• Participants greeted by the ‘experimenter’
• Introduced to the other ‘participant’ who was a confederate
• Participants drew slips to see who would be the learner and who would be the teacher. The real participant was deceived as this draw was rigged so that the real participant would always be the teacher
• Learner + teacher taken to experimental room where the learner was strapped into an electric chair. An electrode placed in learners wrist linked to a shock generator in the adjoining room
• The teacher (true participant) is then taken to the adjoining room and seated infront of the shock generator
• The shock generator was a large machine with 30 switches each showing incremental rise in voltage from 15 volts to 450 volts.
• The experimenter gave a ‘sample shock’ to deceive the participant into thinking the machine actually gave shocks
• Once the study began, the teacher was told to administer a shock when the learner gave the wrong answer and to escalate the voltage each time.
• The learner, who was actually an actor, was told to make no comment or protest until 300 volts and after this was instructed to make no noise at all
• The experimenter was trained to give a sequence of 4 standard prods if the participant hesitated or asked for guidance such as ‘the experiment requires that you continue’.
• After research was completed, the true participant was dehoaxed and debriefed.
• Participants were then interviewed about their experience

Question 3

Findings

Answer 3

Produced quantitative data:
- Milgram surveyed 14 Yale participants who estimated that 0-3% of ppts would administer 450 volts. Findings from the real study show that at all participants administered until 300 volts at which point 5 (12.5%) refused to continue. 26 out of 40 (65%) administered 450 volts

Produced qualitative data:
- Many participants showed nervousness + extreme tension.
- ‘Participants were observed to sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan, and dig their finger nails into their flesh’
- 14 participants displayed ‘nervous laughter and smiling’
- In post experiment interview it was declared that this behaviour was not sadistic
- 3 participants had ‘full blown uncontrollable seizures’
- 1 participant had a violent convulsion so the research had to be stopped

Question 4

Conclusions

Answer 4

• Milgram concluded it was the circumstances the participants found themselves in that created a situation in which it was difficult to obey.
• He suggested that 13 elements contributed to the levels of obedience.
• Location of the study (prestigious university)
• Ppts assumed the experimenter knew what he was doing
• Ppts didn’t want to disrupt the study and felt obligated to the experimenter due to the fact they had volunteered
• New situation for the ppts: didn’t know how to behave

Question 5

Evaluation: validity

Answer 5

Internal Validity
- Orne and Holland claim the research lacks internal validity as ppts may not have believed the shocks were real. This is because ppts often know that a study’s true intentions are disguised and also because it may not be believable that someone in a learning task would receive fatal shocks. Therefore ppts behaved accordingly based on demand characterisitcs
- Gina Perry (2012) found that ppts knew they weren’t hurting anyone. In a follow-up questionnaire many ppts were suspicious due to the calmness of the experimenter
- Milgram challenged these interpretations. In his own post-experiment interview showed that 75% of ppts believed they were giving real shocks and harming the learner

External Validity
- Not generalisable outside of the research setting
- The study was lab based and ppts knew this
- Rank and Jacobson conducted a study in a hospital showing that 89% of nurses refused to administer a dosage that was too high. Therefore, obedience may work differently in a real life environment
- The experiment only used American male ppts
- Kilham and Mann (1974) found that 40% of male Australian students administer 450 volts and only 16% of female did

Question 6

Evaluation: ethical issues

Answer 6

Deception and lack of informed consent
- Milgram’s used deception which could compromise informed consent
- Milgram argued that experiment would have been meaningless without deception

Right to withdraw
- Milgram’s study was not clear to what extent the ppts had the right to withdraw
- Milgram claimed the ppts knew they had the right to leave
- ‘Prods’ from the experimenter may have confused the right to withdraw in the view of ppts

Protection from psychological harm
- Baumrind (1964) claimed Milgram caused unjustifiable psychological harm to his ppts
- Milgram stated that he didn’t know how much distress would be caused and that 84% if ppts stated afterwards that they were happy to have participated. Cost benefit analysis
- Gina Perry (2012) argued Milgram failed his duty of care to the ppts. Some waited a year before being properly debriefed, meaning they potentially had gone a year believing they had killed someone
- Darley suggested that the experience of administering shocks may have activated a previously dormant aspect of an individual’s personality- ppts may feel more able and motivated to carry out unethical actions.