Milgram's variation studies Flashcards
define situational factors
features of the immediate physical and social environment which may influence a person’s behaviour.
what are the variation studies for?
Milgram wanted to look at how situational factors affected a situation.
what was the new baseline study and what were the results?
Milgram moved the study to a more modest place and had the learner mention a heart condition and the teacher was able to hear (pre-recorded) answers. the results were the same 65% fully obedient ppts.
what was the set up of the run-down office block study?
Milgram moved the study to a rundown office block in an industrial city and ppts were told the study was being run by a PRIVATE FIRM for industry research.
what were the results of the run-down office block study?
47.5% of ppts were fully obedient and interviews show that there were doubts about the legitimacy of the research.
- the location must be an important situational factor as it reduced the legitimacy of the researcher.
what was the set-up of the telephonic instructions study?
the experimenter gave instructions over the phone.
what were the results of the telephonic instructions study?
22.5% were fully obedient and ppts lied over the phone, saying they were doing it when they weren’t or administering the lowest shock possible.
- when the researcher came into the room again, defiant ppts became obedient again.
physical presence appears to be an important situational factor.
what was the set-up of the ordinary man gives orders study?
the ppt arrives with 2 confederates. one confederate was given learner and the other recorder. the experimenter receives a phone call to leave the room and has the recorder learn the word pairs. the recorder suggests administering shocks upping by 15v every time it is wrong.
what was the result of the ordinary man gives orders study?
20% were obedient with 80% refusing to continue
- the orders must come from legitimate source of authority
what was the evaluation of the rundown office block study?
a strength was that milgram collected both quantitative and qualitative data
- MODIGLIANI AND ROCHAT (1995) conducted a re-analysis and found that the earlier the ppt challenged the experimenter, the more likely they were to be fully defiant.
the qualitative data helped them gain a deeper insight.
what was the evaluation of the telephonic instructions study?
a strength is that subsequent research has replicated this finding which demonstrates high external validity.
- SEDIKIDES AND JACKSON’S zoo study
which also demonstrated that when the authority figure is not present obedience drops.
Milgram’s results generalise well to naturalistic environments
what was the evaluation of the ordinary man gives orders study?
a weakness is that it may lack internal validity. the withdrawal of the experimenter was awkward and there were traces of derived authority as the experimenter as it was he who originally suggested the shocking.
- this suggests obedience may have been even lower in situations where the person giving the orders has completely no authority or relation.
what was the issue in the design of the studies?
over 900 ppts took place over a period of time, which may have led to exposure to others who had already done this and discussed that the shocks were not real.
- this may have jeopardised the validity of the results due to demand characteristics
