Milgrams Original Study LT1 Flashcards
What was the aim of the original study?
Establish a baseline measure of how obedient pps would be when ordered to administer increasingly intended electrical shocks by an authority figure, thinking that they were physically harming that person
What year did the original study take place?
1963
Where did it take place?
Yale
Who took part?
How old were they?
40 American men
20-50 years old.
How were pps gathered?
An advertisement in the newspaper asking volunteers to take place in a study about how punishment affected learning.
Money offered.
At Yale university.
How much did they get paid for taking part?
$4.50
What was the pps told if they wanted to stop?
The experimenter would give standardised verbal prods. E.g. The experiment requires to continue.
Where pps aloud to leave the experiment?
They were told beforehand they were able to leave whenever they wanted to and would be aloud to keep the money.
How did the ‘learner’ and ‘teacher’ roles get picked?
In a rigged draw. The learner was always a confederate and the teacher the pp. however they pps believed the confederate to also be a pp.
Where did the learner and confederate get taken?
The learner was put in a room attached to a electric shock machine, the pp saw this happen and then the pp was the in the room next to it with the machine to administer electric shocks (he could hear but not see learner) and the experimenter was there too.
Who were confederates?
The experimenter and the learner.
How did the learner react to electric shocks?
(He wasn’t actually being shocked)
There was a scripted response to shocks which was the same for every pp.
E.g. 300v pound on the wall and 315v remain silent (assumed passed out or dead)
What were the ‘teachers’ supposedly teaching?
Word pairs
How many volts did the shocks go up each time?
15v
What was the highest voltage?
450v
