Milgram (1963) Obedience Flashcards
area?
social
assumptions
- behaviour is affected by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others.
- behaviour is affected by situational factors and the social context.
background summary
- destructive obedience: following orders to harm another person.
- dispositional hypothesis vs situational hypothesis: the debate as to whether behaviour is due to the person and their individual personality or the power of the situation.
- Germans are different hypothesis: the common idea after WWII that the reason the holocaust happened in Germany is because the Germans are different as people, specifically they are particularly obedient.
aim
to investigate how obedient people would be to orders from a person in authority that would result in pain and harm to another person.
fake aim
to see the effect of the punishment on learning.
method
Controlled observation in lab setting.
NO IV
DV = obedience
sample
Participants were selected from a newspaper advert. There were 40 males, aged 20-50 from a range of jobs and backgrounds from New Haven, USA. Sampling type = volunteer.
procedure
1) Role choosing (always teacher for participant), meeting Mr Wallace and fake aim told (punishment and learning). 2) Shown electric shock generator + 45V sample shock. 3) Word pair task e.g. red balloon. 4) Learner responses scripted e.g. “I told you I had heart trouble. My heart’s starting to bother me now” (150V). 5) Verbal prods - ‘please continue’ or please go on’ à ‘the experiment requires that you continue’ à ‘it is absolutely essential that you continue’ à ‘you have no other choice, you must go on’. 6) Debrief (meet learner, learn true nature of exp, questionnaire on if they were glad to have taken part + 1 year follow-up).
results
100% went to 300V, 65% went to 450V. Participants showed signs of tension and stress e.g. sweating, biting fingernails, nervous laughter, seizures.
conclusion
The majority of people are willing to follow destructive orders.
The obedience did not come easily and unthinkingly - the situation triggers a conflict between two deeply ingrained tendencies; to obey authority and not to harm people.
ethical guidelines broken
- deception (fake roles and fake aim).
- no informed consent
- protection of ps (caused the stress)
- right to withdraw (prods made it harder to withdraw)
ethical guidelines adhered to
- debrief
- confidentiality maintained throughout
applications
Theoretical – The Germans are not different – shows how obedient we all could be.
People are encouraged to question the legitimacy of an authority before they are obedient.
Many professions are no longer allowed to plead obedience as an excuse for a wrong decision (nurses, members of the armed services etc. Alexander (2009) Internal Criminal Court has predicted atrocities before they took place.
Tarnow (2000) Plane crash analyses – up to 20% of all airplane accidents could be prevented by the first officer challenging decisions made by the pilot.
how does the core study link to the area/ perspective?
Assumption 1 - Behaviour is affected by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others.
Link – The authority figure in a lab coat was the other person.
Evidence – This influenced all of the ps to reach 300V.
Assumption 2 - Behaviour is affected by situational factors and social context.
Link – Certain situational factors were important i.e. authority figure presence and being in a place of
legitimate learning.
Evidence – This contributed to 65% (majority) obedience.
how does the core study link to the key theme?
Milgram investigated rates of obedience by ordering 40 men aged 20-50 from New Haven USA to deliver electric shocks to another person. The other person was a confederate of the experimenter called the ‘learner’ and the real participant was called the ‘teacher’. The teacher gave shocks to the learner which increased by 15 volts each time upon the orders of the experimenter who verbally prodded the participant whenever he tried to stop. Milgram found that the majority of ps (65%) delivered the maximum shock of 450V when ordered to by a person in authority but that they found this very difficult as they would sweat, laugh nervously and some even had seizures when doing this.
ethnocentrism
Single Western country a possibility than Americans are more or less obedient that other cultures BUT replications suggest not.
population validity
OK size (not too small to be generalisable).
All male (can’t generalise to women).
Same area/ same country (can’t generalise to other areas/countries).
Volunteer samples are biased (especially problematic here as could be particularly helpful i.e. obedient).
reliability
High control means that it’ll be a similar experience for all ps i.e. a standardised procedure such as verbal prods.
Replication has shown similar trend.
internal validity
Accusations of demand characteristics but 70% said they thought the shocks were real.
Participant variables – very helpful?
No order effects (not repeated measures design).
Few situational variables due to high control.
Not much chance for researcher effects as the measure of obedience (shocks) is objective.
ecological validity
Ecological validity moderate.
Experimental realism high (70% real shocks).
Mundane realism low (task and setting very unusual).
