Milgram in 21st century

Question 1

What was milgrams past?

Answer 1

• Jewish descent, parents emigrated to US in WW1
  -family survived Nazi concentration camps
  -interest in Holocaust

Question 2

What was the aim?

Answer 2

-Examine how accused at Nuremberg trials justified acts of genocide during WW2
[Defence often based on obedience - following orders from their superiors]

Question 3

How did he get people to partake and who?

Answer 3

Advert for p’s study on learning and memory.
40 males age 20-50 unskilled or profesh paid $4.50

Question 4

What was the experimental set-up?

Answer 4

P always teacher [set-up]
Learner in room to chair and electrodes - p with experimenter-

Question 5

What were the instructions?

Answer 5

p teach word pairs - mistake = shock
Danger warnings! On device
P gets a 45v sample shock

Question 6

Actual experiment

Answer 6

Start - got answers right - starts to make mistakes
Voltage of shock increased, screams / vocalisations increased in intensity
p hesitated, experimenter said must continue

Question 7

The learner script

Answer 7

150v - first request to get out
(see replications)
After 330v the ‘learner’ fell silent
P’s instructed to treat silence as an incorrect answer
Apply next shock level

Question 8

The experimenter script

Answer 8

Four ‘prods’
P’s under diff levels of pressure to continue
No2: ‘Experiment requires that you continue’
No 4: ‘You have no other choice; you must go on’
[carried on when told they not responsible]

Question 9

What were the coping strategies?

Answer 9

Pleaded with learner
Nervous laugh
Telling self it has to go on

Question 10

What were the results?

Answer 10

65% max
Avg max = 360v
80% administered shock
Predicted 3% would go to max

Question 11

Why were these the results?

Answer 11

Ambiguity of situation [influenced by exp]
Exp has authority - fam with test - has to be safe
diffusion of responsibility

Question 12

What were the variations?

Answer 12

Office building = 48%

T + L in same room = 40%

Teacher force hand on shock plate = 30%

Exp leaves lab gives orders on phone = 23%

Exp leaves and normal man takes over = 20%

P sees 2 others rebel = 10%

Question 13

What were the experimental issues?

Answer 13

Ecological validity? more rel to military context

Not representative - all male

Volunteer sample - more likely to comply

Learner male - gender bias? do it to woman?

standardised procedures - can be rep but mainly in western cult

Question 14

What were the ethical issues?

Answer 14

Deception - mem&learn not obedience - necessary?

No protect of p’s - very stressed [heavy pressure needed?]

Right to withdraw? 35% did - difficult w/prods?

debriefed - 1yr later 83.7% glad they participated

Question 15

Controversy & criticism

Answer 15

Bias reporting - milgram

Selective editing & reporting

Improv of prods - varied [26 times on one p]

Misrepresentation - 600 only told 1yr later [deception] - most not told

Question 16

Replications - Burger (2009)

Answer 16

Profile analysis from original study

Found 150v threshold - willingness to go to max voltage

‘Learner’ vocalisations to quit study

79% went to max

Question 17

Conditions of replications - Burger (2009)

Answer 17

Baseline condition - 1 T - 70% to 150v

2 T - (modelled refusal condition)

Stooge p, shock 90v, refuse to go on after ‘Learner’ complains

real p takes over ~ 63% to 150v

% lower than Milgram - not statistically significant

Question 18

What was the Game of death replication?

Answer 18

Beavois et al, 2012

comply/resist tv host?

Question 19

Results of game of death

Answer 19

good reporting

willing to give fatal shock - told to

81% (n=26) went to max shock in stnrd con

host-withdrawal – left after 80v

no authority figure = 28% (n=2)

Question 20

news report - game of death

Answer 20

Power of tv made them do it

Expose tv mind-numbing power

Audience cheered on - 16/80 backed down

Proves willing to act against own morals

Act now – respond to situation ques

Question 21

Why where Milgrams interpretations questioned?

Answer 21

4th prod = no obedience

More prod resembled order = less likely to comply

p’s response pattern opposite

Rather than evidence for obedience – orders from authority figure = disobedience

Question 22

What was prod 4

Answer 22

“You have no other choice you must go on”

strong opp - even in rep studies [peer pressure from audience

Question 23

Identification not obedience

Answer 23

Ps motivated by engagement / identification with scientific community
* not obedience
* obedience = acceptance of experimenter’s scientific goals

• 2nd prod relates to this
• “The experiment requires that you continue”

Question 24

30 step procedure

Answer 24

• increasingly more objectionable tasks (Haslam et al., 2014)
• images (e.g. Family walking, Nurses, Traffic warden, Hells angels, Rioters, Ku Klux Klan)
• Select neg word (list)
• Milgram prods
• continuation predicted by prods linked to scientific goals cf. requests / orders
• Prod 2 – 40% more likely to compete task cf. Prod 4
• prods seen as orders – more disobedience

Question 25

Game of death prods

Answer 25

First four prods - Milgram-like wording esp*
* ‘Go on with the questions’ *
* ‘Go on, don’t let yourself get upset’
* ‘The rules say you must go on’ *
* ‘Go on, we are taking all responsibility for this’

• Fifth prod directed to TV audience –
• ‘You can’t make him lose; what does the audience think?’
• [Milgram –’You have no other choice, you must go on’]
• Response - audience insisted that the game continued

Question 26

Analysing the prods

Answer 26

Most participants carried on response to prods 2 and 3
* “Go on, don’t let yourself get upset”
* “The rules say you must go on”

• Fifth prod – more order-like
• only 1 p complied
• Supports the critique of Milgram –
• engagement with the experimental process (i.e. game show rules) will elicit obedience, not an order