Milgram’s - Obedience Flashcards
Ecological validity is arguably a strength of Milgram’s research into obedience
E – The study required participants to follow instructions from an experimenter in the controlled and artificial environment of a laboratory.
E – Arguably, the use of an artificial laboratory setting limits the study’s relevance to real-world situations, undermining the extent to which Milgram’s findings on obedience can be generalized to the real world. However, it’s also arguable that the laboratory setting enhances the study’s ecological validity. In this controlled environment, the experimenter held legitimate authority, making their instructions to participants carry a realistic weight. Furthermore, while Milgram’s task was unconventional in modern life, it mirrors the essence of real-world scenarios of destructive obedience, such as during WWII, when Nazi soldiers followed orders from superiors to commit atrocities.
L – Therefore, although Milgram’s research has attracted criticism for its ecological validity, there are good reasons to believe its findings on destructive obedience can be generalized to the real-world.
Milgram’s research into the situational variables affecting obedience may have been undermined by demand characteristics
E -Milgram’s research assistant categorized participants into “doubters” (who believed the shocks were fake) and “believers” (who thought they were real) and found that doubters were more likely to deliver the maximum shock.
E – The presence of doubters may stem from the artificial nature of the experiment, acting as demand characteristics that allowed participants to guess the aim and alter their behavior. Their willingness to shock the learners undermines the experiment’s internal validity, as it becomes unclear whether their obedience was due to the variables Milgram investigated or their desire to please him by obeying. Furthermore, demand characteristics threaten the study’s ecological validity, as participants’ unnatural behavior in response to the demand characteristics means Milgram’s findings cannot be reliably generalized to real-world obedience. However, signs that the participants were experiencing significant stress during the study, such as sweating, stuttering, groaning, and biting their lips. These stress reactions suggest that participants believed the situation was real, meaning that the findings cannot be entirely dismissed as a result of demand characteristics.
L – Therefore, the potential problem of demand characteristics undermines the validity of Milgram’s research into obedience, although it remains unclear to what extent demand characteristics were present in the study.
Milgram’s research into the situational variables affecting obedience has been criticised for its significant ethical issues
For example, Milgram deceived his participants in a number of ways. Most significantly, they were told the learner was a fellow participant when in fact he was a confederate, and, crucially, they were also told the shocks were real. Furthermore, this final deception caused significant psychological harm to the participants, who experienced obvious and profound signs of stress during the experiment. For example, many of the participants were seen to sweat, stutter, bite their lips, groan and dig their fingernails into their hands. Moreover, Milgram arguably prevented the participants exercising their right to withdraw, as the prompts from the experimenter were designed to encourage the participant not to withdraw (e.g., ‘The experiment requires that you continue’). Nonetheless, the ethical failings of Milgram’s research do not have any bearing on the validity of his conclusions, as unethical research can still be valid.
L - Therefore, Milgram’s research deserves criticism for its ethical failings, although these criticisms don’t undermine his conclusions on the situational variables affecting obedience
