Milgrams Obedience Orginal Study Flashcards
MILGRAMS ORIGINAL STUDY (1963)
Aims
MILGRAMS ORIGINAL STUDY (1963)
Procedure
Procedure
Volunteers for a lab experiment (Yale university) investigating learning in response to an advert. Th40 participants (all aged between 20 and 50 whose jobs range from unskilled to skilled. They were paid $4.50 to turn up At the beginning of the experiment they were introduced to another participant who was actually a confederate of the experimenter.
They drew straws to determine roles of teacher or student but this was fixed.
There was also an experimenter dressed in a grey lab coat played by an actor.
Two rooms i were used one for the learner and another for the teacher and experimenter with an electric shock generator.
The learner was strapped to a chair with electrodes after he learned a list of word pairs given him to learn the teacher tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its partner from a list of four questions.
The teacher is told to give a shock every time a learner gets a question wrong and increased voltage each question from 15 to 450 volts.
Learner gave mainly wrong answers on purpose and teacher gives a shock and if a teacher refused there were four prods.
1. Please continue
2. The experiment requires you to continue
3. Is is essential you continue
4. You have no choice but to continue
MILGRAMS ORIGINAL STUDY (1963)
Results
• All of the participants were obedient until 300 volts which is the point where the learner was kicking the wall and stopped answering questions.
• Many participants showed signs of stress such as sweating and trembling but some participants remained calm throughout the experiment.
• 14 participants showed nervous laughter.
• 14 participants dropped out of the experiment between 300 and 375 volts.
65% pps carried on until 450v at the end
MILGRAMS ORIGINAL STUDY (1963)
Conclusion
• Ordinary people are brought up listening to authority and is ingrained into us.
• People think authority figures are morally right especially in the workplace.
• Milgram realised when the participant could not see the learner they were more likely to follow the orders but when the participant could see the learner showed more empathy and were less likely to be obedient.
• Situation overrides Disposition
MILGRAMS ORIGINAL STUDY (1963)
Generalisability
• Experiment isn’t generalisable because of 1960s prejudice, 20 - 50 year old participants (SPECIFIC SAMPLE) - POPULATION VALIDITY
• Women may also have responded differently to the men but 0 women were studied so it can only be generalised to the specific type that were studied. 40 MEN - ANDROCENTRIC
• American - CULTURE
• Caucasian men - ETHNOCENTRIC
• Experiment not applicable in today’s society as the people will have different and more modernised morals and experiences than those in the 60s, many volunteers would’ve experienced world wars so their view on authority will be different. HISTORICAL BIAS (McCarthyism)
MILGRAMS ORIGINAL STUDY (1963)
Reliability
Reliability
Results are reliable because the experiment was very controlled as all volunteers went through the same process and were tested on in the same environment and were all treated the same.
PRODS - same eg You must continue
Recorded protests
Situational factor - seating plan
15V - wrongs answer
MILGRAMS ORIGINAL STUDY (1963)
Application
Application
The study demonstrates how obedience to authority works and this can be used to increase obedience in schools, workplaces and prisons. It shows how members of authority should wear symbols or uniforms to justify authority.
It shows how the nazis during ww2 were not acting of their own accord but due to the pressure and demand of the higher powers eg the fuhrer were unable to refuse and had to obey what was being demanded of them. It also showed the physical
distress of people and how despite being so upset about what they were doing by showing physical symptoms like laughing nervously, sweating and shaking the participant were still obedient.
MILGRAMS ORIGINAL STUDY (1963)
Validity
• Participants were 40 males - POP VALIDITY + ANDROCENTRISM
• Aged between 20-50 years old - POP VALID
• Jobs ranged from unskilled to professional
• They were paid $4.50 for just turning up
This study lacks population validity because it has a very small sample size and it is gender biased and the experiment can therefore not be generalised for the whole population. In essence, this means we are unable to generalise the results to other populations, in particular females, and cannot conclude if female participants would respond in a similar way.
MILGRAMS ORIGINAL STUDY (1963)
Ethics
• DECEPTION + NO INFORMED CONSENT Considered unethical, as ordinary, innocent members of the public were led to believe they were administering dangerous, life-threatening shocks to a real person, potentially killing them.
• PSYCHOLOGICAL HARM - Many participants showed signs of extreme stress: laughing nervously; trembling; sweating; stuttering. Throughout and some time after the experiment, several participants experienced psychological harm, and later felt severe guilt.
• RIGHT TO WITHDRAW - Told at the start of exp + keep money
• HOWEVER- PRODS - you must continue
