Milgram: Behavioral study of obedience. Flashcards
What is the aim of the study?
The aim of the study was to investigate how obedient individuals would be to orders received from a person in authority. Specifically if they would be obedient even when it would result in physical harm to another person.
How did Milgrim test his aim of the study?
Arranged his laboratory-based procedure to involve giving electric shocks to a victim under the order of a researcher
Why did Milgrim come up with this study?
To challange a dispositional argument that said that Germans had a defective personal trait that made high levels of obedience possible, this argument aimed to explain the actions done by Germans in the Holocaust.
What was Milgrim’s explanation for the obedience of German’s during the Holocaust?
A situational explanation that said that many people would harm or kill people after given orders from an authority figure in the same situation.
The design of this study is? What are some features of it?
A controlled observation(or lab experiment). In this setting all variables and measurements are controlled, while the behaviour of the participants is observed and recorded.
Every participant in this study followed what?
The same procedure.
What was the control condition?
There was no control condtion.
How was the participant’s level of obedience determined/measured? How was it operationalized?
Participant’s obedience levels measured through observation. Operationalized through the maximum voltage a participant would give in response to orders.
The participant’s/sample of this study were? How were they selected/recruited?
The sample was 40 men between the ages of 20 and 50 years. They were recruited/selected through a newspaper advertisement in New Haven (CT).
Features of the sample/participant’s, who were they and why did they participate?
They were unskilled white collar workers, they participated because they were promised 4.50$
Where did this study take place and why?
Took place in Yale University as it gave the study legitimacy and was a important situational factor for obedience.
Participant’s initial arrival and meeting of stooge
Participant arrived and met a fake participant who was a stooge/fake for the study,
In what experiment did the real participant think he was participating in?
Participant told he would be participating a experiment about the effects of punishment on learning.
How was the fake experiment set up?
The stooge and participant would be allocated ‘learner’ and ‘teacher’ roles, they drew pieces of paper from a hat to determine the role. The election of roles was rigged and the stooge would always get the learner.
The participant was taken to another room where the stooge was?
Strapped to a chair and had electrodes attached to him by the experimenter.
What range did the shock generator that was presented to the participant have?
15V to 450V
How was the shock voltage organized and what labels did it have?
Labelled in ascending order with words such as
‘moderate shock’, to ‘danger: severe shock’ and for the final two switches
‘XXX’.
As demonstration the participant was given a shock of?
45V
Did the stooge ‘learner’ receive actual shocks?
No
Describe the experimenter of the fake study
He was a 31 year old teacher who wore a grey technician’s coat and had a serious manner
The ‘memory task’ of the experiment was?
The participant ‘teacher’ reading pairs of words aloud to the learner, and subsequently testing the
learner on their recognition of the words.
Each time the learner made a mistake the shock would increase by?
15V
The learner’s (stooge) ‘mistakes’ were?
Intentional, already plan and got them wrong at particular times
When 300V were reached what did the learner(stooge) do?
He pounded on the wall
After 300V what did the learner(stooge) do?
Made no noise and stopped responding to the questions
The experimenter after the stooge had gone quiet instructed what to the participant?
To continue with the questions and to take silence as an incorrect answer
When participant’s protested, what verbal prods would the experimenter give?
“Please go on/Please continue/The experiment requires that you continue/It is absolutely
essential that you continue/You have no other choice, you must go on.”
Were the verbal prods standardized?
Yes
When was the procedure of the actual study completed?
When the participant “teacher” refused to give any more shocks or when 450V had been reached.
One-way mirrors were used for what?
Physical behaviours of participants
After the procedure was complete the participant’s were?
Were interviewed and the deception was explained to them, they also met the stooge ‘learner’
What specific interview question were they asked?
To estimate how painful they thought the final 450 V shock was, on a scale of 0–14
The mean for how painful participant’s thought the 450V shock was?
13.42 of a maximum of 14, showed that they were aware they were causing pain
What was the mean voltage participant’s gave?
368V
All participants gave at least how many voltages
300V
What percentage of participants gave the maximum 450V?
65%
Participant’s were observed
sweating, shaking and groaning,
14/40 men showed signs of what?
Nervous laughter or smiling
Participant’s who protested at orders said things such as?
‘I don’t think I can go on with this…I don’t think this is very humane’, and ‘I’m gonna chicken out…I can’t do that to a man, I’ll hurt his heart’
Were the verbal prods given by the experimenter successful?
Yes
How did participants act after the procedure was over?
Showed signs of relief, wiped their faces, sighed and shook their heads
What does Milgrim’s study support?
The idea of a situational explanation for obedience
The high level of obedience could be attributed to what 2 factors?
The legitimacy portrayed by the study, the location and the uniformed experimenter and feeling of financial obligation the participants had
towards the experiment.
Milgrim concluded that the majority of people
Are much more obedient to authority than we might reasonably expect.
Milgram concluded that even through high levels of obedience people still undergo stress because
This is due to a conflict between two important social phenomena: the need to obey those in authority and the need to avoid harming other people.
As a result of this study being a controlled observation(lab experiment) what was possible?
Made it possible for extraneous variables in the environment to be controlled.
What are some extraneous variables that were controlled?
The age and appearance of the actor playing the stooge
What was standardized in this study?
Verbal prods used by the experimenter
What was the result of standardization throughout the study?
The study became more reliable
What was a way in which validity was increased, how did it do this?
The clever design of the electric shock generator and the example shock given to participants. ensured that participants were convinced that the study was real and that their actions actually mattered.
The quantitative measure in this study was?
The voltage of shocks delivered by the participants
The quantitative measurement in this study was?
An objective record of obedience for each participant
What did the qualitative measurement of the participant’s behaviour provide?
A richer understanding of the tension between wanting to obey orders and wanting to obey one’s own conscience
What is a weakness of the participants/sample used in this study?
Low generalizability
Were the participants given fully informed consent?
No
What study did participants think they were participating in?
Memory and punishment
How were participants deceived throughout the study?
Believed the role of ‘teacher’ and ‘learner’ were randomly selected. They also were deceived to think stooge was actually experiencing pain.
How were participants arguably denied the role to withdraw?
The obligation they felt from the research continuing and the verbal prods giving by the experimenter
