Milgram's Obedience Study. Flashcards
What were one of the prods?
Please continue.
What percentage of participants went to at least 300V?
100%
What percentage of participants went to the full 450V?
65%
What did Milgram conclude from his study?
He concluded that, people will obey authority even when they know that what they are doing is wrong.
What was the aim of Milgram’s study?
To investigate the power of an authority figure.
Where was the experiment held?
Yale University
How many participants were there?
40
How old were the participants?
Between 20 and 50
What were the 3 variations of Milgram’s study?
1.Proximity
2. Location
3. Uniform
What was found when proximity was altered?
-When the teacher and learner were in the same room, obedience dropped from 65% to 40%.
-With physical contact, obedience dropped to 30%.
What was found when location was altered?
When the study was repeated in a run down office block, obedience dropped from 65% to 47.5%.
What was found when uniform was altered?
-When the experimenter wore a lab coat, obedience levels were at 65%.
-When the experimenter wore ordinary clothes, obedience dropped to 20%.
Give an advantage of Milgram’s study.
+There is supporting evidence from Bickman for the uniform variation.
Obedience levels were higher when dressed as a security guard (92%) compared to normal clothes (58%).
Give a disadvantage of Milgrams study.
-Demand characteristics.
Participants may not have believed they were real shocks. The screw/please you may affect validity because the study wouldn’t be measuring obedience accurately.
-Low ecological and population validity. Highly controlled lab experiment conditions lead to demand characteristics.
Pps were all white, male, aged 20-50, american volunteers. Can’t be generalised and is not representative of the wider population.
-Methodology can be criticised for its breach of ethical guidelines.
The right to withdraw was breached because when pps asked to leave they were forced to continue with prods such as ‘please continue’.
