obediance

Question 1

what is social influence?

Answer 1

when an individuals behaviour, attitudes and beliefs are affected by a real or imagined pressure from another person

Question 2

what is obedience?

Answer 2

a form of social influence which involves yielding to the demands of an authority figure

Question 3

what is dissent?

Answer 3

rejecting or disobeying the demands of an authority figure

Question 4

what is the ‘Germans are different’ hypothesis?

Answer 4

the belief that the Nazi soldiers had a basic character flaw that rendered them more obedient to orders from an authority figure, even if the instructions were to kill other people

Question 5

what were Milgram’s aims?

Answer 5

• to test the ‘Germans are different’ hypothesis
• to investigate whether ordinary people would follow the orders of an authority figure to give an innocent person an electric shock

Question 6

describe Milgram’s sample

Answer 6

• 160 people
• all male
• age 20-50
• diverse occupations (excluded students)
• self selecting/volunteer sample advertised in local newspaper as a ‘study of memory and learning’
• got paid $4

Question 7

what is the problem with Milgram’s type of sample chosen?

Answer 7

volunteers share similar characteristics which non-volunteers don’t

Question 8

what is a confederate?

Answer 8

a person who is working with the researchers but pretending to be a participant

Question 9

describe the procedure of Milgram’s experiment

Answer 9

• his experiment took place at Yale university
• the experimenter briefed both of them about how some people may learn more effectively through punishment, but that this had not been tested on humans of different ages. this was done to justify the electric shock that was about to come
• 2 man lots are drawn to see who will take the role as teacher and one as learner. teacher is written down twice and so the real participant is always the teacher and the confederate is always the learner
• the experimenter takes the participant and Mr Wallace to another room where Mr Wallace is strapped into an electric chair, the pt is told the straps are necessary to avoid excessive movement during the shock procedure
• the experimenter explains the pair associated task to the pt. he tells him he is to read a list of word pairs to Mr Wallace which he must remember
• the pt will then read out the first word of the pair and give four possible options as the answer. Mr Wallace must press 1 of 4 switches in front of him to indicate his answer which appears on the panel in front of the pt
• Mr Wallace gives 3 wrong answers to 1 right answer
• the experiment continues until it reaches the maximum of 450 volts

Question 10

who was always the teacher and who was always the learner?

Answer 10

the teacher was always the real participant and the learner was always the confederate

Question 11

list the 4 verbal prods given to the ‘teacher’ during Milgram’s experiment

Answer 11

• ‘please continue’
• ‘the experiment requires you to continue’
• ‘it is absolutely essential that you continue’
• ‘you have no other choice you must go on’

Question 12

why was it important that what the experimenter said to the participant was standardised in this way?

Answer 12

different prods may trigger different responses so its important to control it

Question 13

what happened to the participants at the end of Milgram’s experiment?

Answer 13

-Milgram debriefed all of his participants straight after the experiment and disclosed the true nature of the experiment
-participants were reassured that their behaviour was common
-Milgram also followed the sample up a year later and found that there was no signs of any long term psychological harm. this involves being introduced to Mr Wallace and assured that the learner is ok and the shocks were fake

Question 14

what was the rate of obedience in Milgram’s experiment?

Answer 14

65%

Question 15

what was the rate of obedience in Milgram’s study up to 300v?

Answer 15

100%

Question 16

how many pt’s went to 450v compared to 300v-375v?

Answer 16

-26 out of 40 went to 450v
-14 stopped between 300-375

Question 17

describe the quantitative findings, how did the pt’s behave during Milgram’s experiment?

Answer 17

-pt’s were observed to sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lip, groan and dig their fingernails into their flesh
-unexpected sign of tension: nervous laughter, for 3 people this developed into uncontrollable seizures
-experienced moral strain

Question 18

give 3 factors why people obeyed during Milgram’s experiment

Answer 18

-verbal prods: participants encouraged to continue by the experimenter e.g. ‘you must continue’
-perception of legitimate authority: the experimenter was presented as having status e.g. wore a grey lab coat and carried a clipboard
- legitimacy of setting: took place at Yale University so participants thought the researchers were experts

Question 19

describe the 3 variations of Milgram’s experiment

Answer 19

rundown office block:
-change of location from prestigious setting of Yale to a scruffy office block in Bridgeport so perception of authority is reduced
- obedience drops to 48%

telephonic instructions:
-authority becomes remote (far away) proximity and instructions are given over the phone so less likely to obey
-obedience drops to 22.5%

ordinary man gives orders:
-man dressed in casual clothes rather than lab coat of an experimenter
- reduces obedience down to 20%

Question 20

what conclusions can be drawn from Milgram’s variations?

Answer 20

that these variations reduce the status of an authority figure

Question 21

what did Hofling et al 1966 find?

Answer 21

• that 21/22 nurses obeyed the instructions of an unknown doctor who gave the orders over the phone to give a dangerously high dose of medicine to a patient
• they concluded that because the doctor was such a high authority figure, the nurses would not disobey despite knowing that the order was wrong

Question 22

describe the generalisability of Milgram’s experiment

Answer 22

-a sample of 40 is quite large but anomalies may spoil the results

• the original sample is all male and all American which can’t generalise to women or other cultures (gender bias, culture bias)
• it’s a volunteer sample and volunteers share similar characteristics such as obedience

Question 23

describe the reliability of Milgram’s experiment

Answer 23

• it’s very reliable as it can be replicated. 19 variations were carried out on his baseline study
• contains standardised procedures eg. pre scripted verbal ‘prods’ used by the experimenter

Question 24

describe the application of Milgram’s experiment

Answer 24

• demonstrates how obedience to authority works and this can be used to increase obedience in settings like schools and workplaces
• authority figures should wear symbols of authority (uniforms) and justify their authority with reference to a greater good

Question 25

describe the validity of Milgram’s experiment

Answer 25

• low ecological validity as the tasks are artificial to real life e.g. teachers don’t shock students, however similar circumstances in history e.g. holocaust
• internal validity: critics of Milgram (Orne and Holland) suggest that participants guessed that the shocks were fake. this implies Milgram was not testing what he intended to

Question 26

describe the ethics of Milgram’s experiment

Answer 26

• deception: pt’s were deceived as they actually believed they were shocking a real person and were unaware the learner was a confederate. the electric shocks were fake. lied about the aims of the study
• protection of participants: participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations, 3 had seizures, many pt’s were very distressed and had signs of tension
• informed consent: pt’s knew the experiment but not to the extent they thought

Question 27

describe the findings of Milgram’s study (2 marks)

Answer 27

Milgram found that 65% of pt’s continued to the highest level of 450volts and all the pt’s continued to 300v.
Milgram did more than one experiment, he carried out 18 variations of his study.
All he did was alter the situation (IV) to see how this affected obedience (DV)

Question 28

give one ethical issue of Milgram’s study and explain why it’s an issue

Answer 28

the pt’s actually believed that they were shocking a real person and were unaware the learner was a confederate of Milgram’s therefore the deception principle was broken