Milgram's obedience Flashcards
Aim
To observe whether people would obey a figure of authority when
told to harm another person.
Procedure
40 American men volunteered to take part in a study. When participants arrived at the lab they were given the role of ‘teacher’ and a confederate given the
role of ‘learner’. This was decided through a random allocation. Participant had to ask the confederate a series of questions.
Whenever the confederate got the answer wrong, the participant
had to give him an electric shock, even when no answer was given. Participants thought the shocks were real when in fact there were
no real shocks administered, and the confederate was acting.
Findings
All participants went up to 300V and 65% went up to 450V.
No participants stopped below 300V, whilst only 12.5% stopped at
300V, showing that the vast majority of participants were prepared to give lethal electric shocks to a confederate.
Milgram also collected qualitative data including observations such as the ppts showed signs of extreme tension, many of them were sweating, trembling, stuttering, three even had uncontrollable seizures.
Factors
affecting
obedience
Proximity.
Participants obeyed more when the experimenter was in the same room. The rate dropped from 65% to 40%. In the touch proximity variation the experimenter had to force the learners hand onto a electroshock plate and if they refused to place it there after giving a wrong answer obedience dropped to a further 30%
Location
Participants obeyed more when the study was conducted at a
prestigious university i.e. Stanford. This is because the prestige of such
a location demands obedience and also may increase the trust that the
participant places in the integrity of the researchers and their
experiments.
obedience fell to 47.5%.
uniform
in the study the experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of authority. in one variation, the experimenter was called away and replaced by an ordinary member of the public in everyday clothes. Obedience dropped to 20% which was the lowest. This is because uniforms encourage obedience because they are recognised symbols of authority.
Strengths- RESEARCH SUPPORT
Milgram’s findings were replicated in a French documentary.
This focused on a game show made especially for the programme. The participants in the game believed that they were contestants in a pilot episode for a show called LE JEU DE LA MORT. They were paid to give fake electric shocks to other participants in front of an audience. 80% delivered the max shocks to an “unconscious man”. their behaviour was almost identical to Milgram’s participants- the nervous laughter, biting nails.
THIS SUPPORTS MILGRAM’S FINDINGS OF OBEDIENCE.
Weakness-LOW INTERNAL VALIDITY
his procedure may not have been testing what he intended to test. He reported that 75% said that they believed the shocks were real. However Martin Orne and Charles Holland argued that ppts behaved as they did because they didn’t really believe in the set up so they were play acting. Perry (2013) confirms this. She listened to tapes of Milgram’s ppts and reported that only half of them believed the shocks were real 2/3 were disobedient.
-DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS
STRENGTH- COUNTERPOINT
Sheridan and King (1972) conducted a study using a procedure like Milgram’s. ppts gave REAL shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter. Despite the real distress of the animal 54% of the men and 10% women gave what they thought was the fatal shock.
THIS SUGGESTS THAT EFFECTS IN MILGRAM’S STUDY WERE GENUINE BECAUSE PEOPLE BEHAVED OBEDIENTLY EVEN WHEN SHOCKS WERE REAL.
WEAKNESS- ETHICAL ISSUES
Participants were deceived as they thought the allocation of roles was random but it was fixed. They also thought that the shocks were real.
There was also signs of psychological harm inflicted on them as they showed signs of distress, trembling and sweating
