Milgrim

Question 1

What is obedience?

Answer 1

Obedience is a type of social influence where somebody acts in response to a direct order from another person(Cardwell 1996)

Question 2

What is legitimate authority?

Answer 2

People obey because they see the authority of others as lawful

Question 3

What is gradual commitment?

Answer 3

Once people comply with a trivial, seemingly harmless request, they find it more difficult to refuse to carry out more serious requests

Question 4

What was the aim of Milgrims research?

Answer 4

First aim to test if Germans are different hypothesis. Idea that obedience can be explained in terms of internal, dispositional factors. Milgrim strongly disputed this idea and thought it was that obedience occurred due to situation rather than culture
Second aim was to identify how the role of situational factors influence obedience.

Question 5

What was the methodology and participant selection?

Answer 5

Study was conducted in a lab so the conditions can be strictly monitored. However, it was not an experiment as there was no IV.
Milgrim placed an advertisement on a local paper. Selected 40 males between ages of 20-50 years. Participants were led to think that study was on memory. They were also payed.

Question 6

What were the procedures of Milgrim study?

Answer 6

Before experiment, milgram asked 100 college professors how they thought participants would react.
Took place at Yale University. 40 participants were used. They were greeted by a young man in a grey lab coat Jack Williams and Mr Wallace the other participant(Actor).
Names pulled out of the hat for who is teacher and learner were rigged so the participant is always the learner
Participants were given a 45V shock to prove they are real.
Generator if increasing shock levels 15V to 450V
Each incorrect answer shocks went up the teacher would ask to ‘‘please continue’’ and the experiment requires for you to carry on’’

Question 7

What were the findings of the study?

Answer 7

15-285V-0 subjects stopped
300V- 5 stopped
315V-4 stopped
330V-2 stopped
345V-1 stopped
360V-1 stopped
375V-1 stopped
450V-26 participants continued to obey until this end
14/40 showed signs of nervous laughter
Most believe that they were extremely painful shocks

Question 8

What was concluded?

Answer 8

Study demonstrated that anybody is capable of going against their conscience and obeying potentially lethal orders against another human. Obedience is in fact as a result of situational factors in which the participants found themselves in that led to the disobedient behaviour and not internal factors.
-the lab coat signaled authority
- gradual commitment in shocks meant harder to go back
combination of all of these made it harder to disobey