Milgram Flashcards
What is the background of Milgram’s research?
Milgram was Jewish
Intrigued by Asch’s studies
Wanted to explore scientific underlying of psychological mechanisms behind destructive obedience
Wanted to take his experiment to Germany
What is the way of getting pp of Milgram’s experiment?
PP responded to advertisements and mail shots asking for volunteers to take part in scientific research at Yale
What are the sample?
Diverse
Range of ages and occupations
Mainly male
n=40 but later tested 1000
What is the procedure?
Fake draw of sticks to decide who plays role of learner and who teacher (image)
‘Shock generator’ machine and sample shock (45v) – based
on ‘aggression machine’ invented by Buss (1961)
Read out word pairs and then test learner’s memory for them
and punish each error with a shock (diagram)
Increase intensity of shock upon each error (15v each time,
rising from 15 to 450)
If participant became reluctant to continue, then the experimenter used a script
What are the basic dependent measures?
Max voltage participants willing to shock to
Verbal scripts
Observation of video footage
Debrief interview materials
What are the basic findings of Milgram?
Students, behavioural scientists and laypersons asked to predict – they all said nobody would continue once the learner protested
In the pilot study all went to 450V
The mean disobey voltage= 360V
65% never disobeyed at all and all went to 450V
No PP stopped before 300V
What was the script for 180V?
‘I can’t stand the pain’
What is the script at 270V?
A loud scream
What were the variations?
Proximity of the learner
Legitimacy of authority
Location
Touch
2 experimenters
What were the results when the experimenter learnt that the learner had a existing heart condition and who found this?
Obedience was 26/40
Elms 1995
What is the mean level of shock when the PP was left alone?
50V
What happened with 2 experimenters?
No-one continued due to arguing
What happened with the location?
48% fully obedient
What happens with touch?
30% obedient
What happened with legitimacy of authority?
Scientist replaced by layperson, 20% were fully obedient
What happened with the proximity of the learner decreasing?
93%
What happened wit the proximity of the authority reducing?
Orders by the phone, 20.5%
Who looked at cross-cultural evidence?
Miranda et al 1981
Kilham & Mann 1974
What were the PP + obedient max shock level in Miranda et al?
Spain, Students, over 90
What were the PP + obedient max shock level in Kilham & Mann?
Australia, male and female students, 40(M), 16(F)N
What were the reactions for Milgram?
PP sweated, trembled, stuttered, bit their lips, groaned, broke into fits of uncontrollable nervous laughter
What are the early explanations of Milgram?
Danger of fundamental attribution error
Power of the situation (My Lai Massacre)
Agentic shift
Nuremberg defense
Who looked at the theoretical alternatives?
Elms 1995
What did Elms 1995 find?
Milgram raised the possibility to dispositional factors, idiosyncratic motives, empathetic cues, denial and narrowing of the cog field= Milgram, 1962
Who tried to replicate Milgram?
Burger 2007
What did Burger find?
Tested 18 men, and found that 65 percent of them
agreed to administer increasingly painful electric
shocks
22 women signed up for the experiment. 73 percent
yielded to the orders of the experimenter.
What were the characteristics of Burger’s PP?
Ps had an unusually high level of education. 22.9
percent had some college, 40 percent had bachelor’s
degrees and 20 percent had master’s degrees.
The group was also ethnically diverse with 54.3
percent (white), 18.6 percent (Asian), 12.9 percent (Latin/Hispanic), 8.6 percent (Indian-Asian) and 4.3 percent (African -American).
What is the My Lai Massacre?
According to eyewitness reports offered after the event, several old men were bayoneted, praying women and children were shot in the back of the head, and at least one girl was raped and then killed.
What is the agentic shift?
Individual becomes an instrument of authority, no longer fully autonomous
Almost an altered state of consciousness
Acts conducted in this state have no long-term consequences for self-concept
Obedience is often rewarded – e.g. in school or in the world of work
Socially organized evil
What is the danger of fundamental attribution error?
The term refers to the human tendency to overestimate the influence of personal dispositions (e.g., traits, morality) while underestimating the power of situational factors in explaining behaviour.
What are the explanations of the agentic state?
Norms – Ps had entered into a ‘contract’
Authority respect
Cause respected – ‘Science’ (ideological justification) & meaningful roles (learner/teacher)
Surveillance
Little time for reflection
Focusing on ‘doing the job’ and the task itself
(quotation)
‘De-valuing’ learner
Displacement of responsibility
Who looked at displacement of responsibility?
Caspar et al 2016
What is displacement of responsibility?
Nuremberg defense, a way to dismiss responsibility
What were the main findings from Caspar et al 2016?
Reduced Sense of Agency Under Coercion= PP report reduced sense of control when acting voluntarily
Behavioural Effects= Participants were more likely to deliver harmful shocks when coerced, despite potential moral objections.
Neural Mechanisms= fMRI showed altered activity in brain regions associated with decision-making and moral reasoning, such as the prefrontal cortex, when acting under coercion.
Who looked at the nuclear weapons personnel?
Wye 1971
What is nuclear weapons personnel?
Similar kind of duality of self
Personal responsibility diffused Emotional and moral reactions blunted
Never told the targets
No one person can feel solely responsible
Often work in pairs in missile silos so conformity issues as well
What are the criticisms of Milgram?
Ethics
Ecological validity
What are the ethics?
Harm to PP= attitudes to trust and high stress
No tru informed consent
Encouraged PP to continue when they wanted to quit
Who looked at ecological validity?
Baumrind
What did Baumrind find?
Labs are strange setting
What was Milgram’s response to the criticisms?
Only 1.3% of PP had negative feelings about taking part
Psych assessment= no harm caused
Experimental lab is a valid setting
May be a good thing to make people question authority more
Who looked at alternative explanations?
Haslam et al
Adorno
What did Adorno et al find?
Authoritarian personality= pref to strong authority figures, hostility to out groups and higher obedience
What did Haslam et al find?
Engaged followship model=Our own research shows that tyranny does not result from blind conformity to rules and roles
It is a creative act of followership that flows from identification with authorities who represent vicious acts as virtuous
Who looked at pregnant women?
Lydon & Dunkel-Schetter 1994
What did Lydon & Dunkel-Schetter 1994 find?
Pregnant women express greater commitment to the pregnancy after seeing an ultrasound scan that reveals body parts
Who looked at the effects of uniform?
Bushman 1984
What did Bushman 1984 do?
Had confederates dressed in uniform, neat attire and in shabby outfit stand next to someone fumbling for change for a parking meter, confederate stopped passer by and ordered for change for the mete
What were the Bushman 1984 findings?
Over 70% obeyed the uniform, 50% for neat or shabby
