Milgram Evaluation

Question 1

Evaluation points

Answer 1

Ethical issues

Lacked ecological validity

Social identity theory - key to obedience lies in group identification

Sample bias

Question 2

Lacking ecological validity (explain)

Answer 2

Findings cannot be generalised beyond a lab setting

Cannot to applied to obedience IRL

Question 3

Lacking ecological validity (expand)

Answer 3

Task was artificial + no social context
E.g participant did not fear punishment, soldiers would

No moral + political context
E.g real life obedience situation, solider may feel duty to obey

Question 4

Lacking ecological validity (link)

Answer 4

Cannot be applied to real life situations

Question 5

Biased sample (explain)

Answer 5

Sample = 40 American men

(20-50)

Question 6

Bias sample (expand)

Answer 6

Not generalisable because sample was self elected by newspaper

Typical ‘volunteer personality’