milgram's research on obedience. Flashcards
what is obedience?
obedience is a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. the person issuing the order is a person of authority who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming.
difference between conformity and obedience
conformity is going along with the group’s norms and yielding to group pressure whereas obedience is changing behaviour in order to follow the demands of an authority figure to avoid punishments.
explain milgram’s research
milgram recruited 40 male participants through newspaper adverts and flyers stating that he was looking for participants for the study about memory. the learner was a confederate, the true participant was the teacher and there was also a experiment, a confederate, in a lab coat.
participants were told they could leave the study whenever.
the learner was strapped to a chair in a separate room and wired with electrodes, the teacher was told to give the learner an increasingly severe electrical shock, every time the learner made a mistake on a learning task. the shocks began at 15 volts to 450 volts. after 300 volts(the intense shock) the learner began to pound on the walls not responding to the questions in which the teacher turned to the experiment for guidance and the experiment replied with the standard instruction ‘ the absence of a response should be treated as the wrong answer.’ if the teacher felt unsure about continuing, the experiment would say four pods,
pod 1 ‘ please continue’
pod 2 ‘the experiment requires you to continue’
pod 3 ‘ it is absolutely necessary that you continue’
pod 4 ‘ you have no choice you must go on’
findings of milgram’s research
no participant stopped below 300 volts
12.5% stopped at 300 volts whilst the majority 65% went to the maximum voltage of 450
qualitative data shows that participants showed signs of tension such as sweating and lip biting
limitation of milgrams research
the study lack internal validity as research shows that the participants might have behave the way they did as they didn’t believe it was a real set up (real shocks) Shierdan and kings conducted a similar research but with a puppy and 100% female student participants delivered what is thought to have been a fatal shock
strength of milgram’s research
the processes of obedience to authority can be generalised to other situations, where as it may appear that the research lacks external validity, the lab environment accurately reflects wider authority relationships in real life. other research evidence supports this including Hofling’s research which studied nurses on a hospital ward and discovered that the level of obedience to unjustified demands to nurses from doctors were very high ( 21 out of 22 nurses obeyed)
replication of milgram’s research
in a reality TV show, the participants believed they were contestants of a new game show, they were ordered to give electric shocks to other participants
findings include that 80% of participants delivered the maximum shot of 450 volts, their behaviour was also identical to the participants in the original milgram’s research , nail biting etc. this replication supports milgrams conclusion about obedience and therefore making his theory reliable
ethical issues of milgram’s research
milgram deceived the participants making them believe the roles of the learner and teacher was randomly allocated but it was in fact fixed.
he also deceived them thinking that the electric shocks were real.
the participants showed symptoms of being psychologically distressed (nail biting…)
how did milgram act ethically during his research
milgram gave the participants the right to withdraw
what is the social identity theory?
according to the social identity theory, the key to obedience lays in group identification, in milgrams study the participants identified with the experimenter as they identified with the science of the study however obedience levels dropped when the participant identified more with the victim
what are situational variables in the research?
situational factors in milgram’s research includes:
1) proximity
2) location
3) uniform
these are factors that influence the levels of obedience in the study
how does proximity impact obedience
in milgram’s original study where the teacher and the learner were in adjoining rooms, where the teacher could hear but not see the learner, obedience rates were at 65% and when the learner was placed in the same room as the teacher obedience rates dropped to 40%.
in a touch proximity condition where the teacher had to force the learner’s hand onto an electroshock plate, obedience levels fall further to 30%.
in a remote instruction condition, the experiment left the room and obedience level fell even further when the instructions from the experiment were given via telephone.
how does location impact obedience
milgram changed the location of the study from a prestigious Yale university setting to a run down building and obedience rates fell to around 47% from 65%.
how does uniform impact obedience
in the original study, the experimenter wore a lab coat (A SYMBOL OF AUTHORITY) , then the experimenter was called away due to an inconvenient phone call and when then replaced by a member of public, a confederate,wearing ordinary clothes and so obedience levels fell by 20%
research support for milgram’s variations.
in a field experiment, Bickman had three confederates dressed in three different outfits, a milkman’s outfit, a jacket and tie and a security guards outfit. the confederates went on the streets to ask by passers to pick up litter. data shows that the individual is twice as likely to obey the man in the security guard outfit than the one with the jacket and tie. this supports Milgram’s theory that uniform conveys the authority of its wearer.
