Milgrim

Question 1

what was Milgram’s study called and when did he carry it out?

Answer 1

‘Are German’s different?’ - 1963

Question 2

what was his aim?

Answer 2

to investigate obedience to a legitimate authoritative figure.

Question 3

what was his procedure?

Answer 3

• recruited participants via newspaper adverts (volunteer sample)
• selected 40 male participants aged 20-50
• study consisted of experimenter (in white coat), learner (confederate) and teacher (naïve participant).
• naïve participants told to give electric shocks (not real) from 15V-450V
• experimenter gave ‘prods’ to encourage the teacher to continue.

he did 21 variations of this experiment.
including proximity, effects and location

Question 4

what were Milgram’s findings?

Answer 4

• 65% went to the maximum voltage (450V)
• 100% continued until no voice from learner (through the vocal feed-back conditions)
• he predicted only 0.1% would go to 450V

Question 5

what did Milgram conclude?

Answer 5

• Milgram concluded that situational variables were important in obedience
• people will obey legitimate authority figure- even with severe consequences.

Question 6

what are some strengths of Milgram’s study?

Answer 6

+lab controlled so therefor reliable and replicable as limited extraneous variables.
+relevance to real life at the time- holocaust
+external historical validity: relevant to nazi germany and the holocaust?

Question 7

what are some weaknesses of Milgram’s study?

Answer 7

• ethics: lack of informed consent, psychological harm, difficulty withdrawing
• low internal validity: may not have believed they were real shocks so displayed demand characteristics.
• low population validity: small sample of white males between 20-50 so harder to generalise.

Question 8

how did the variations in proximity effect obedience?

Answer 8

both teacher and learner were in the room.
obedience levels fell to 40%
on accounts where the teacher was ordered to force the learner’s hand onto the shock pallet, obedience fell to 30%
when the experimenter left the room, the amount going all the way to 450V dropped from 65% to 21%. and on some occasions, the teacher would repeatedly use the smallest shock voltage rather than the higher ones

Question 9

how did variations in location effect obedience?

Answer 9

many participants said the location of Yale University gave them confidence in the integrity of the people involved.
Milgrim moved the study to a run-down office in Bridgeport. obedience rates dropped slightly, with 48% of the participants delivering the maximum 450V.

Question 10

how did variations in uniform effect obedience?

Answer 10

Bushman carried out a study, where a female, dressed as either a police officer, business executive or beggar, stopped people in the street and ordered them to give money to a male who’s parking ticket had expired.
in police uniform- 72% obedience
business executive- 48%
beggar- 52%
people claimed to obey the women in uniform because she appeared to have authority