Milgram Flashcards
1
Q
how can Milgrams be considered to lack ecological validity
A
- Milgram tested obedience in a laboratory which doesn’t represent a real life scenario so people may not portray their real behaviour
- not an everyday occurrence to be instructed to give someone a series of electric shocks because they give incorrect answers in a paired word task so it doesn’t create natural behaviour
2
Q
How can Milgrams study be considered to have high ecological validity
A
- People working in the Nazi death camps were required by authority figures to inflict harm upon other people showing that it can reflect a real-life scenario.
3
Q
How can Milgrams study considered to lack population validity
A
- only uses a biased sample of male volunteers
- means we are unable to generalise results to other populations, particularly females and cannot conclude that females would respond in the same way.
- only uses participants from one area so cannot generalise the results
4
Q
how can milgrams study be considered high in population validity
A
- there is a diverse range of professions and a wide range of ages and occupations
- uses ages from 20-50yrs
- this means that the results can be generalised due to the diversity of occupations
5
Q
how can milgrams study be high in construct validity
A
- due to the study being conducted in a highly controlled laboratory setting it used many controls avoid any extraneous variables to ensure that they were measuring what they wanted to
- e.g. same environment, same paired task.
6
Q
how can milgrams study be considered to have high internal reliability
A
- the procedure was standardised and consistent throughout the study as participants all had the same paired task, participants were always the teacher, they were all given a sample shock of 45V, and were all given the same 4 prods
- this means that the procedure can be repeated as It is replicable due to the standardised procedure
- milgram was able to replicate it with 40 participants due to the standardised procedure
7
Q
how can milgrams study be considered to lack internal reliability
A
- even through there were 4 standardised prods, it would have been difficult for the experimenter to act precisely in the same way for each participant (teacher)
8
Q
how can milgrams study be considered to have high external reliability
A
- milgrams sample of 40 participants was a large enough sample to see a consistent effect.
9
Q
sample used by milgram
A
- self selected sampling method as the participants determined their own involvement by choosing to respond to the advertisement
- assumed that milgram selected his participants (men ages 20-50 from working and lower middle class backgrounds) as they reflect the people who would have worked in the death camps in nazi Germany enabling him to compare them and see whether obedience is universal
10
Q
how is Milgrams study seen as ethnocentric
A
- only carried out in one country (USA) nd it cannot be assumed that the levels of obedience amongst the American participants would reflect the levels of obedience seen among people in other cultures which makes it less generalisable
11
Q
how is milrgams study not seen as ethnocentric
A
- milgrams study showed that obedience to authority is something that could expected to be seen in different countries around the world as it was now seen in 2 countries: Germany and now the USA
12
Q
SITUATIONAL SIDE
how does milgrams study link to individual/situational debate
A
- the fact that 65% of participants were still prepared to administer electric shocks all the way up to the maximum of 450 volts shows that the situation influences behaviour as they conducted the study in a prestigious university with people of authority surrounding them.
13
Q
INDIVIDUAL SIDE
how does milgrams study link to individual/situational debate
A
- the fact that 35% of parcitiants were able to resist the pressure of the scientist and the prestigious university grounds, and walk away before administering the maximum shock of 450volts which shows evidence that peoples personalities can be an even greater influence on their behaviour
14
Q
DETERMINISM SIDE
how does milgrams study link to the freewill/determinsm debate
A
- the 65% of participants who administered electric shocks to the learner all the way up to 450volts can be seen as having their behaviour determined by the situation in which they were in, which is that they were in a prestigious university (Yale unversity) with an observer dressed up in a way of authority.
15
Q
FREE WILL SIDE
how does milgrams study link to the freewill/determinsm debate
A
- the 35% of participants who walked away from the experiment before reaching the maximum shock of 450 volts can be seen as exercising free will and choosing how they act despite the situation or environment that they are in.
16
Q
how can milgrams study be seen as useful?
A
- can be seen as extremely useful as it suggests to people in positions of authority that people in positions subordinate to them can generally be expected to be obedient
- can suggest that levels of obedience might be enhanced by keeping anyone who might be harmed by the persons obedient actions invisible to them and also by not having anyone else there giving contradictory orders.
- it cannot be useful as it has the potential to be abused by those who might seek to get people to obey them for malicious purposes
- it can be used for all of us to guard against blind obedience and to make our own minds up about whether the orders we are being given are ones we feel comfortable obeying
17
Q
how does milgrams study link to the social area
A
- it is rereleasing the extent to which peoples behaviour can be influenced by other people around them
- his patriciants did not want to administer high voltage electric shocks to the ‘learner; but in the face of the prods from the ‘experimenter; they went against their desires and behaved in the way that was requested of them
18
Q
key theme of milgram
A
responses to people in authority
19
Q
how does milgrams study link to the key theme
A
- in relation to the key theme of responses to people in authority, milgrams study would appear to tell us that obedience to those in authority even when they are asking us to cause harm to someone else, is much more common than we would like to believe
