milgram

Question 1

what was milgrams aim and hypothesis

Answer 1

Milgram-
Aim and hypothesis- “THE GERMANS ARE DIFFERENT” milgram argues that Germans have a more authoritative personality, meaning theyre obedient to authority
Aim- to investigate how far people are willing to go in obeying an authority figure

Question 2

what was milgrams sample

Answer 2

Sample- 40 males age 20-50
New haven u.s.a
Varied occupation
Volunteers recruited them through newspaper
Said it was a study of memory and learning

Question 3

what was the procedure of milgrams study

Answer 3

Procedure- roles in milgrams study= 1. Experimenter 2. The learner / victim 3. The naïve participant /teacher

1. lerner strapped up to electric chair
2. teacher told to give a taster shock of 45 volts
3. learner given word pairs to learn
4. teacher gave the learner the word and 4 optional pairs. If the lerner got right, they carried on, however if the lerner got them wrong they would shock them 15-450 volts
5. after 300 volts no noises were heard
6. after 450 volts most shook head/ sighed in relief
7. at end ppts took psychometric test to make sure they weren’t mentally harmed

Question 4

what were the prods used in milgrams study

Answer 4

Prods used: “please continue”
“experimenter requires you to continue”
“you must go on”

Question 5

what were the controls in milgrams study and what made people more likely to follow his study

Answer 5

Controls: roles of the canidiate, voltage amount, age, gender, the lerner, words got wrong

What made people more likely to follow milgrams procedure?
• They were being paid
• They couldn’t see lerner
• Lab coat=experimenter authorative

Question 6

what did milgram conclude

Answer 6

Milgram summed up in the article “The Perils of Obedience” (Milgram 1974), writing:

‘The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous import, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations.

I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist.

Question 7

what were the two states that milgram said the participants faced

Answer 7

Milgram (1974) explained the behaviour of his participants by suggesting that people have two states of behaviour when they are in a social situation:

The autonomous state – people direct their own actions, and they take responsibility for the results of those actions.

The agentic state – people allow others to direct their actions and then pass off the responsibility for the consequences to the person giving the orders. In other words, they act as agents for another person’s will.

Question 8

evaluate milgrams study

Answer 8

weaknesses
Milgram’s sample was biased:

The participants in Milgram’s study were all male. Do the findings transfer to females?

Milgram’s study cannot be seen as representative of the American population as his sample was self-selected. This is because they became participants only by electing to respond to a newspaper advertisement (selecting themselves)

Ethical Issues
Deception – the participants actually believed they were shocking a real person and were unaware the learner was a confederate of Milgram’s.

prods were used, gives particapnt not much of a right to withdraw?

strengths
he did debreif ppts

less demand characteristsics

18 replicas of studies doing different locations etc to make it more generalised