Milgram's Obedience

Question 1

What is obedience?

Answer 1

• Refers to tendency to follow orders from authority figures.
• More likely to follow orders when we believe someone has more social power than us, meaning we believe they are above us in a perceived power hierarchy.

Question 2

What reflect does obedience have on children?

Answer 2

• Children tend to be rewarded for obedience, positive as maintains social harmony.
• Stanley Milgram (1963) showed that blind obedience can lead us to commit brutal acts against others.

Question 3

What 3 variations did Milgram carry out in his research?

Answer 3

• Telephonic instructions
• Rundown Office Block
• Ordinary man giving orders.

Question 4

What was Milgram’s aim of study?

Answer 4

• To test idea that Germans were somehow different from other people, in that they were able to carry out barbaric acts against Jews and other minority groups.
• Milgram tested this by giving voluntary participants orders to give electric shocks to someone they thought was just another participant and see if they obeyed.

Question 5

What was the procedure in Milgram’s study?

Answer 5

• Recruited 40 male participants.
• Ppt recruited aged 20-50, jobs ranged from unskilled to professional.
• Offered $4.50 to take part.
• Confederate named “Mr Wallace” always ended up as “learner” while true participant was “teacher”.
• An “experimenter” dressed in lab coat played by an actor. Ppt told they could leave study at any time.
• Learner strapped in chair in other room and wired with electrodes, teacher required to give learner increasingly server electric shock each time learner made a mistake on learning task (shocks weren’t real).
• Shock lvl start at 15 and rose through 30 levels to 450 volts.
• After 300 volts learner pounded on wall and gave no response to next question. After 315 volts learner pounded on wall again but after there was no further response from learner.

Question 6

What did the experimenter say when teacher turned to the experimenter?

Answer 6

• “An absence of response should be treated as a wrong answer”. If teacher felt unsure about continuing, experimenter would use a sequence of four standard prods.
• “Please continue” or “Please go on”
• “The experiment requires that you continue”
• “It is absolutely essential that you continue”
• “You have no choice, you must go on”

Question 7

What did Milgram find?

Answer 7

• No ppt stopped below 300 volts.
• 12.5% (five ppt) stopped at 300 volts.
• 65% continued to highest level of 450 volts.
• Qualitative data showed observations of ppt of extreme tension, “sweat, tremble, stutter, groan.”
• Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict ppt behaviours, they estimated no more than 3% would continue to 450 volts.
• All ppt were debriefed, 84% reported that they felt glad they participated.

Question 8

What are the 3 situational variables and what do they create?

Answer 8

• Greater or less obedience.
• Proximity - physical distance of an authority figure to the person they are giving an order to. In milgram’s study physical distance of teacher to victim.
• Location - Place where order is issued, relevant factor influencing obedience is status or prestige associated with location.
• Uniform - people in positions of authority often have specific outfit that is symbolic of authority (police officers, judges)