Milgram - behavioural study of obedience Flashcards
Background
Why did the German army follow the orders of Hitler and slaughter over 10 million jews, Gypsies and other minority social groups during the Second World War?
Were they simply more obedient or do we all have potential to follow orders even when there is potential to cause harm to another individual.
Milgram looked specifically at obedience to unjust authority.
Whilst he acknowledged that obedience is a part of social life - some system of authority needed to maintain order, in the hands of unjust authorities do people just agree?
Obedience
A form of social influence in which the individual follows direct orders.
The individual issuing the direct order may be seen as an authority figure who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming.
The experiment
Aimed to create a situation that allowed him to measure obedience even when the command requires destructive behaviour.
Method
Conducted in a laboratory - conditions could be controlled.
Lab in Yale.
Not an experiment. Volunteer sampling.
Advert in the New Haven newspaper.
From those who responded, 40 males were selected to participate.
Between 20 and 50.
Range of jobs - postal clerks, engineers etc.
Deception - the advert made people believe they’d be participating in research about learning and memory.
Procedures
Participants were greeted by the “experimenter”.
31-year-old man dressed in a technicians coat.
Another “participant” was also at the lab. Mid - mannered and likeable 47-year-old accountant (Mr Wallace).
Both men were accomplices of Milgram (called confederates).
Participants drew slips of paper to decide which of them would play teacher and which of them would play the role of learner.
Selection was rigged - the naïve participants were assigned to the teacher role and the accomplice was always assigned the learner role.
Both learner and teacher were taken to the experimental room.
Learner was strapped into an “electric chair” apparatus to prevent excessive movement. Electrode was placed on learner’s wrist.
This was linked to a shock generator in the adjoining room.
The shock machine
Teacher was taken to the adjoining room and seated in front of the shock generator.
The machine had 30 switches on it, each showing an incremental rise in voltage.
Starting at 15 volts and going up to 450.
For every four switches, there were “shock labels” - slight shock, intense shock and XXX (a potentially fatal fault).
Experimenter gave the teacher a “sample” shock to demonstrate that the machine was real.
The learning task
Teacher was told to administer a shock when the learner gave a wrong answer.
Told to escalate to a higher level of shock each time.
Told to announce the shock level each time. Learner was told to make no comment or protest until the shock level of 300 volts was reached.
Then told to pound on the wall but then make no further comment.
Feedback from experimenter
Experimenter was trained to give a sequence of four standard “prods” if the teacher hesitated about delivering the shock or asked for guidance.
“Please continue.”
“The experiment requires that you continue.”
“It’s absolutely essential that you continue.”
“You have no other choice, you must go on.”
Dehoax
After the study the teacher was “dehoaxed” - debriefed.
The experimenter reunited the teacher and learner.
They were then interviewed about their experience in this study.
Quantitative data
Prior to the study Milgram surveyed 14 Yale psychology students.
They estimated that 0-3% of the participants would administer 450 volts.
The findings from the actual study showed this was an underestimate.
A large majority continued to the highest level.
At 300 volts, 5 (12.5%) of the participants refused to continue.
This was the point at which the learner made the only protest.
All the participants had continued to this point.
26 of the participants (65%) administered the full 450 volts.
35% of the participants defied the experimenter’s authority.
Qualitative data
Many participants showed nervousness, and a large number showed extreme tension.
“Subjects were observed to sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan and dig their finger-nails into their flesh.”
14 participants displayed “nervous laughter and smiling”.
Their remarks and outward behaviour indicated that they were acting against their own values in punishing the learner.
In the post-experimental interview (the “dehoax”), these participants explained that they weren’t sadistic and that their laughter had not meant that they were enjoying shocking the learner.
3 participants had “full-blown uncontrollable seizures”.
1 participant had such a violent convulsion that the research session had to be stopped.
Conclusions
Milgram concluded that it’s the circumstances in which the participants found themselves that amalgamated to create a situation in which it proved difficult to disobey.
Conclusions - examples
He suggested 13 elements in this situation that had contributed to these levels of obedience.
Examples:
The location of the study at a prestigious university provided authority.
Participants assumed that the experimenter knew what he was doing and had a worthy purpose, so should be followed.
The participant didn’t want to disrupt the study because he felt under the obligation to the experimenter due to his voluntary consent to take part.
Orne and Holland (1968)
Claim that this research lacks internal validity as the participants did not believe that electric shocks were real.
It wouldn’t have made sense that someone in a learning experiment would receive fatal shocks.
Participants behaved as they were expected to behave due to the demand characteristics of the study.
Gina Perry (2012) - internal validity
She read through Milgram’s detailed archive of what actually happened in the study and found that the participants knew they weren’t hurting anyone.
In the follow - up questionnaire many participants said they were suspicious for many reasons.
For example:
The experimenter had remained calm.
However, are they trying to pretend that they didn’t think they were real?
Due to the guilt?
