Milgram (obedience) Flashcards
What was Milgram’s aim?
Aim: To investigate how far people would be willing to go in obeying an authority figure when asked to administer electric shocks to another person.
What was Milgram’s method?
Method:
40 men aged 20-50 volunteered to participate in a study into ‘learning and memory’. On arriving at Yale University participants were greeted by the experimenter in a grey lab coat. The participant was paid for taking part and then introduced to another ‘participant’ (who was really a stooge). They then drew lots to decide who would be the learner and who would be the teacher. The draw was fixed - the participant was always the teacher.
The participant watched as the learner (the stooge) was strapped into a chair, attached to electrodes linked to a shock generator. Participants were given a shock of 45 volts to convince them the shock generator was real. The learner complained of a slight heart problem but was told although the shocks may be painful they would not be harmful.
The teacher (participant) was taken into another room and seated in front of a shock generator. The shocks ranged from 15 -450 volts and
went up in 15 volt intervals. The teacher had to test the learner on word pairs and every time they got one wrong the teacher had to give them an electric shock beginning at 15, increasing by 15 each time.
The learner did not really receive electric shocks but just acted as if they did. At 315 volts the learner let out a violent scream and at 330 volts there was complete silence. If the teacher hesitated in giving a shock the experimenter used verbal prods to encourage them to continue (e.g. “please go on”, “the experiment requires that you continue”).
What were Milgram’s results?
Results: Before the study Migram had asked staff, psychiatrists and students to predict how many participants would continue to the full 450 volts. They predicted that most participants would stop after 150 volts and less than 1% would continue to 450 volts. Milgram found that 100% of participants went up to 300 volts and 65% continued to 450 volts!
What was the conclusion on Milgram’s study?
Conclusion: Ordinary people are capable of following the orders of a perceived authority figure, even if these could result in killing another person.
Milgram AO3 (restricted sample)
P - Restricted Sample: Volunteers are not necessarily representative of the population as a whole because they are self-selecting and this sampling method may attract a certain personality type.
E - Milgram’s participants were obtained by placing an advert in a local newspaper. Participants were a cross-section of men aged 20-50 from New Haven.
T - Therefore, it may not be possible to generalise the findings of the research to the population as a whole.
Milgram AO3 (low internal validity)
P - Low Internal Validity: Milgram’s procedure may not have been testing what he intended it to test.
E - It could be argued that Milgram’s participants behaved as they did because they didn’t believe in the set-up so they were just ‘play-acting’.
T - This suggests that participants may have been responding to demand characteristics and simply trying to fulfil the aims of the study, which lowers the internal validity of the findings.
Milgram AO3 (genuine findings)
P - Counterpoint: However, there is evidence to suggest Milgram’s findings were genuine.
E - In a similar obedience study participants had to give real shocks to a puppy. 54% of male participants and 100% of the females delivered what they thought was a fatal shock.
T - This suggests that Milgram’s findings were genuine because people behaved obediently even when the shocks were real meaning we perhaps shouldn’t dismiss Milgram’s findings.
Milgram AO3 (real world applications)
P - Real-World Applications: Milgram’s findings have had real-world applications.
E - For example, by highlighting the powerful influence of authority figures, Milgram’s findings offer explanations fo atrocities such as war crimes. Sometimes those on trial for war crimes have used the ‘following orders defence’ which supports Milgram’s view about ordinary people committing atrocities if ordered to by an authority figure.
T - Therefore, Milgram’s findings are useful and may help us understand how to prevent future war crimes.
