Milgram Flashcards
Aim
To test how far ordinary people go when being ordered to give electric shocks. Are germans different?
Method
40 men aged 20-50
Opportunity sampling from newspaper advertisement
Paid for their time
Told theyd be taking part in human learning experiment.
Located at yale university.
Ppts split into teachers and learners (fixed on confederates)
Witnessed confederates being wired to a chair in a separate room and given 45v shock.
When given a wrong answer teacher must shock and increase voltage by 15v.
15v-450v
Verbal prods from experimenter
Pre recorded statements from the learner such as “get me out of here!” Stopped at 300v as well as receiving no answers.
Results
100% (40/40) ppts obeyed to 300v.
65% (24/40. Qualitative data was also produced – signs of distress such as nervous laughter.
3% of students believed ppts would go to 450 volts.
Conclusion of theory
In conclusion, ‘ordinary’ people obey orders from an authority figure in extreme conditions even if they feel uncomfortable about doing so.
Variation 7- telephonic instructions
To see if proximity effected obedience Milgram had the experimenter move to a different room following the instructions and all instructions and prods were given over the phone.
Obedience went down to 22.5% going to 450 (when they altered it slightly and had the experimenter return when they refused on the phone obedience went back to normal)
Variation 10- office building
Relocated experiment to a run down office building to reduce the strength of the authority. The exp was also being run by a private firm not a university. The same procedure as study 1 was conducted. Obedience reduced to 48% and many ppts questioned the credentials of the researcher.
Variation 13- ordinary man
to reduce the authority again. Three ‘participants’ (two being confederates) they drew lots and were assigned to teacher, learner and experimenter (with the real ppt being the teacher always). The teacher was not told what level of shock to give. After some time the experimenter was called out of the room and the experiment continued without him. The learner was the one who suggested the shock level be increased. Only 20% went to 450v.
+standardised procedures
Each participant experienced the same through high controls such as;
pre-recorded script to avoid bias which means the procedure is replicable and has high reliability.
Which is an advantage because it means that similar results will be produced when repeated.
The use of the lab experiment also increases reliability.
increased validity, as they prevented any extraneous variables from confounding the results, meaning they were testing what they claimed to be testing and the experience was the same for all.
-unethical
The participants were deceived by being unaware of what the true purpose of the study actually was.
There was no informed consent.
The participants showed clear psychological harm through the qualitative data gathered such as nervous laughter, and some psychologists argue that despite technically having the right to withdraw they did not fully due to the pressure given from the verbal prods to stay and remain in the experiment.
-lab experiment
Lacks ecological validity as it is an artificial setting, so participants may behave differently.
-Bad sample
Limited age and gender so conclusively lacks generalisability – those outside of that age limit e.g. teenagers may behave differently.
No females
Ethnocentric.
