Milgram's Baseline Study

Question 1

What are two aims of Stanley Milgram’s study?

Answer 1

1. To investigate how far people will be prepared to go in obeying an authority figure.
2. To understand the behaviour of the Germans who followed orders to kill over 10 million people in the Holocaust.
   The “Germans are Different” hypothesis

Question 2

What are the details of the sample used in Milgram’s study?

Answer 2

40 men
Aged between 20 and 50
From a range of occupations - unskilled to professional

Question 3

What was the location of the study?

Answer 3

Yale University

Question 4

How much were the sample paid for being involved in the study?

Answer 4

$4 plus 0.50c for car fare

Question 5

How were the sample selected?

Answer 5

They were a volunteer sample and each responded to an advertisement.

Question 6

What did the participants think the study was about?

Answer 6

To investigate learning and memory

Question 7

What is a confederate?

Answer 7

It is a person that is involved in the study and they know the true aims of the study - like an actor.

Question 8

What was the role of the confederate?

Answer 8

They were the learner.

Question 9

How were the ‘teachers’ assigned to their roles?

Answer 9

They drew straws but the outcome was always fixed.

Question 10

What was the ‘learner’s’ name?

Answer 10

Mr Wallace

Question 11

What was the experimenter wearing?

Answer 11

A white lab coat

Question 12

What task did the learner have to do?

Answer 12

Learn word pairs and he was given four possible answers.

Question 13

What was strapped to the learner (Mr Wallace)?

Answer 13

Electrodes

Question 14

What did the teacher have to do if the learner got the incorrect answer in the word pair task?

Answer 14

Press the button on the machine to give an electric shock.

Question 15

How many switches were on the electric shock machine?

Answer 15

30

Question 16

What was the voltage of the switches (from lowest to highest)?

Answer 16

15 volts (slight shock) all the way up to 450 volts (danger/severe shock)

Question 17

When the teacher refused to give an electric shock, what happened?

Answer 17

The experimenter gave a prod (a verbal command) to encourage them to continue.

Question 18

How many different prods were there?

Answer 18

4

Question 19

What were the prods?

Answer 19

1. Please continue
2. The experiment requires that you continue
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue
4. You have no other choice, you must go on

Question 20

How many volts did each switch increase by?

Answer 20

15 volts

Question 21

At what stage did the learner pound on the wall?

Answer 21

300 volts

Question 22

When did silence from the learner occur?

Answer 22

350 volts

Question 23

What percentage of people went to the full 450 volts?

Answer 23

65%

Question 24

What percentage of people went to at least 300 volts?

Answer 24

100%

Question 25

What was the minimum shock that was given?

Answer 25

300 volts

Question 26

What can be concluded from this study in relation to obedience?

Answer 26

1. Ordinary Americans are astonishingly obedient to authority when asked to behave in an inhumane way.
2. It is not necessarily evil people who commit evil crimes but ordinary people who are just obeying orders.
3. Crimes against humanity may be the outcome of situational rather than dispositional factors
4. An individual’s capacity for making independent decisions is suspended under certain situational constraints – namely, being given an order by an authority figure

Question 27

Can Milgram’s findings be applied to other people (Generalisability)?

Answer 27

Generalisability was low (a weakness) because Milgram only used American males.

He used only 40 participants which means any anomalies are not evened out.