milgrams research Flashcards
what is obedience
a more direct form of social influence where the person has less choice, they are faced with a choice to comply to a member of authority (they might not defy due to fear of punishment)
characteristics of conformity
no one tells us what to do, we do it because we want acceptance or believe that they know better than us, individuals are aware that they have conformed
characteristics of obedience
obey because people have more authority than us, we are ordered to do something directly unaware of being subjected to pressure
what was the aim of milgrams study
to investigate obedience of authority after the events of the holocaust procedure (using electric shocks)
what was the sample in milgrams study
40 male participants who were recruited through newspaper adverts and flyers asking for volunteers
what was the procedure in milgrams study
-rigged draw to decide who was the teacher (always the participant)
-experimenter wore a lab coat
-learner was strapped into a chair that the participant could not see but could hear in another room
-teacher gave a shock higher voltage each time the student got an answer wrong as directed by the experimenter
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what happened at 300 and 315 volts
at 300 volts the student would bang on the wall and at 35 volts the would be no response from the student at all
what happened when the teacher asked for guidance from the experimenter after there was no response
the experimenter would say “an absence of a response should be treated as a wrong answer” the the teacher would shock the student again
what were the four prompts that the experimenter said
-please continue/ go on
-the experiment requires that you continue
-it is absolutely that you continue
-you have no other choice you must go on
what were the findings of milgrams research
3% were predicted to continue to 450 volts but 12.5% stopped at 300 and 65% went all the way to 450 volts
-people will obey unjust orders of authority under the right circumstances
what were the ethical issues with milgrams research
deception, no right to withdraw, no protection from harm
what is internal validity
the degree to which the researcher is measuring what the intend to
what is external validity
the degree to which research findings can be generalised to other settings (ecological), other groups of people (population), or other times (historical)
what is acquiescence bias
the tendency to agree with items on a questionnaire regardless of the content on the question
