Milgram situation variables Flashcards
What is situational variables?
Several factors that influence the level of obedience shown by the participants in milgrams study.Related to the external circumstances
What is proximity?
The physical closeness or distance of an authority figure to the person giving orders .
The learner and the teacher are in the same room
What is touch proximity?
Teacher and the learner were touching as the teacher forces the learners hand onto the electroshock plate
What is phone orders?
Experimenter left the room and gave instructions to the teacher by the phone.
What are the 5 variables ?
Proximity
Touch proximity
Phone order
Location
Uniform
What is the location variable?
The original study was conducted at Yale university and they switched the location to an old run down building to test obedience in.
The obedience rate fell to 47.5
What is the uniform variable?
The experimenter were in lab coats but they made them leave and have a person wearing ordinary clothes as experimenters to test obedience and the rate went down to 20%
What was the obedience rate to the 5 variables ?
Proximity : 40%
Touch proximity: 30%
Phone order : 20.5%
Location : 47.5
Uniform : 20%
AO3 for Situational Variables
Research support
Cross cultural replications
Lack of internal validity
AO3 : Research support
Did a field experiment where confederates dressed as a security guard a milk man and an ordinary person asked the public to do things and see if they would.
Obeyed twice as much to the security guard then the others which supports milligrams study as they conformed more when the experimenter was in uniform
AO3 : Cross cultural replications
Generalisable to all western cultures and countries as when Spain and Australia conducted an obedience test it was the same as milligrams with over 90% rate of obedience.
However smith and bond said not for eastern cultures and countries as no studies were conducted so don’t know whether the information can be extrapolated to be generalised for eastern countries
AO3 : Lack of internal validity?
Participants figured out that the study procedure was fake so they acted accordingly to the study rather than obediently to the procedure. So they were not testing obedience but rather acting accordingly so the results are not really valid and internally correct.
