milgram's study of obedience Flashcards
What was the aim of Milgram’s study?
To disprove the ‘Germans are Different’ hypothesis and test people’s obedience to an authority figure
What was the sample in Milgram’s Original study?
40 American males at Yale University
What roles were assigned to participants in the study?
Learner and teacher
The roles were fixed, ensuring participants were always ‘teachers’.
True or False? Participants in Milgram’s study were randomly assigned to be either a ‘teacher’ or ‘learner’
False. Participants were always ‘teachers’ and the confederate was always the ‘learner’
What happened to the ‘learner’ when they answered a question incorrectly?
They were given an electric shock by the teacher, with increasing voltage for each wrong answer
What was the maximum voltage administered in the Milgram study?
450 volts
What did the learner do at 180 volts?
Shouted that he couldn’t stand the pain
What did the learner do at 300 volts?
Begged to be released
What happened after 315 volts?
There was silence from the learner
What prompts were given to participants who hesitated?
- Please continue
- Please go on
- The experiment requires that you continue
- It is absolutely essential that you continue
- You have no other choice, you must go on
What percentage of participants stopped at 300 volts?
12.5%
What percentage of participants shocked up to the maximum level of 450 volts?
65%
What signs of extreme tension were observed in participants?
- Sweating
- Trembling
- Stuttering
- Biting lips
- Digging fingernails into hands
- Full-blown uncontrollable seizures (in 3 participants)
What was Milgram’s conclusion regarding the ‘Germans are Different’ hypothesis?
Germans are not different; American participants were willing to obey orders even if it meant harming another person
What was the ‘German’s are Different’ hypothesis?
The hypothesis suggested that Germans were inherently more obedient than individuals from other cultures.
How many participants administered shocks at 300V?
All of them
What % did Milgram predict would administer shocks to 450V?
2%
What is the strength of Milgram’s study of obedience?
-Research support
What are the limitations of Milgram’s study of obedience?
-ethical issues
-poor generalizability
-low internal validity due to demand characteristics
Explain the limitation of Milgram’s study of obedience that there are ethical problems?
-informed consent/ deceit: ppts did not know about the true aims of the study as they were told it was to ‘Test the impact of punishment on learning’. The ppts also did not know that the other people in the experiment were confederates and not actually being shocked or experiencing any harm.
-protection from harm: participants experienced extreme stress, and 3 participants actually experienced ‘full blown uncontrollable seizures’
Explain the limitation of Milgram’s study of obedience that there is poor generalizability?
-small sample so less representative of a range of attitudes and behaviours
-study was androcentric, therefore didn’t represent the actions of women, who may have responded differently to the study.
-only contained Americans, therefore cannot be generalized to people across the world.
-This means that the research lacks external (population and cultural) validity and we cannot generalize the findings, therefore telling us very little about obedience in the world
Explain the strength of Milgram’s study of obedience that there is research support?
-Hofling et al conducted a study where 22 nurses received instructions from an unknown doctor over the telephone to administer an overdose of a drug not on their ward list to a patient.
-21/22 (95%) obeyed without question and began to administer the drug before being stopped.
-This supports Milgram’s findings, that in a real-life situation, people would blindly obey orders even if it is against rules and may cause harm to others.
Explain the limitation of Milgram’s study of obedience that there is low internal validity due to demand characteristics?
-Milgram reported that 75% of his participants said they believed the shocks were genuine.
-However, Orne and Holland (1968) argued that participants behaved as they did because they didn’t really believe in the set up, and were ‘play-acting’ therefore would obey an experimenter’s orders, whereas they would not obey the same orders given by someone else.
-Perry listened to tapes of Milgram’s participants and reported that only about half of them believed the shocks were real.
-This suggests that participants may have been responding to demand characteristics, trying to fulfil the aims of the study, therefore it lacked internal validity.
