Milgram’s Study Flashcards
What is the background of Milgram’s (1963) study into obedience?
Milgram wondered if German obedience in World War II was dispositional and wanted to pilot a procedure to assess obedience.
Aims of milligrams 1963 study of obedience
Wanted to investigate the process of obedience, and the power of legitimate authority, even when a command requires destructive behaviour.
What is the Design of Milgram’s, 1963, study into obedience
A controlled observation in a laboratory using self report. Milgram called it an experiment, but it was not really an experiment because there was no independent variable.
What was the sample for milligrams 1963 study into obedience?
40 American men, age, 20 to 50, recruited via a newspaper advert. The men had varied occupational and educational backgrounds, but there was no high school or college students. Participants were paid $4 +$.50 for transport.
What was the material/apparatus used in milligrams 1963 experiment into obedience?
A shock generator with 30 switches labelled from 15 to 450 V in increments of 15 V labels, describe voltage intensity, e.g. “strong shock“
What was the procedure of milligrams 1963 experiment into obedience
- study took place at Yale uni,
- participants where told the study was about punishment and learning,and were told they would be paid $4.50.
- volunteer introduced to confederate (mr Wallace)
Teacher and learner advised shocks would be painful but there would be no tissue damadge. T given 45 - volt test shock to show shocks were real.
When the shock level reached 300 V the learner had been instructed to pound on the wall. The pounding on the wall was repeated again at 315 V, and after that the learner stopped responding.
Quantitative Results of Milgram’s (1963) study into obedience.
All 40 participants continued giving shocks up to 300 volts
5 participants stopped at this critical point of 300 volts.
-Obedience - 26 out of 40 participants continued to the end 450 volts and were considered obedient.
Disobedience- 14 out of 40 participants were disobedient
Qualitative Results of Milgram’s (1963) study into obedience
Many participants showed signs of nervousness, sweating, ting, stuttering, biting their lips and groaning.
Uncontrollable seizures were observed for three participants
Participants comments showed their distress e.g. he’s banging in there I’m going to check it out I’d like to continue but… I’m sorry I can’t do that to a man .
What is the conclusion to milligrams 1963 experiment into obedience?
People are surprisingly obedient to authority.
The study demonstrated the power of the situation in obedient behaviour, rather than disposition ( the Germans are different hypothesis)
A significant amount of participants were disobedient
Ethical considerations of Milgram, 1963 experiment into obedience.
Despite being distressed by the experience, participants were debriefed and many felt very positive about the study.
Deception was used as participants were told the study was about learning and the electric shots were real. This means participants were deprived of the right to give inform concern. This is important because they were exposed to psychological harm.
Something biases in Milgram, 1963, study into obedience
Sample included men from a range of occupations and educational backgrounds, so it was likely to be representative of the target population.
There may be gender differences which limit the generalised ability of the results. Milgram subsequently conducted the same study with women and found similar levels of obedience.
Ethnocentrism in Milgram’s, 1963 study into obedience.
A feature of the sample is that only Americans were involved.
America is an individualist culture, which is characterised by people being more concerned with individual gains than the common good.
This might have made participants more obedient.
Members of collectivist cultures might be more concerned with the Line is suffering and less likely to obey in authority figure.
Research method and techniques in milligrams 1963, study to obedience.
Study conducted in a controlled laboratory environment, which means that potential extraneous variables e.g. shock levels can be controlled. This increases internal validity.
However, participants were aware their behaviour was being studied because they were brought into the laboratory. This creates demand characteristics so participants might realise thisstudy is about obedience and try to be more obedient.
Validity of milligrams 1963 study into obedience.
Participants may not have believed they were delivering real sharks, which threatens the meaningfulness of the results.
Milgram believe that his results showed that people were very obedient. However, Haslam at 2014 showed that participants only continued for the first three products or participants who were given pro for you. Must you have no other choice you must go on disobeyed. this is a conclusion about obedience because, when participants were told, they must blindly obey, they did not.
The prods
used in milligrams 1963 study into obedience.
Prod 1 : Please continue.
Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.
Prod 3 : It is absolutely essential that you continue.
Prod 4 : You have no other choice but to continue
