Obedience Flashcards
Who conducted an experiment to assess obedience levels?
Stanley Milgram
Describe Milgram’s baseline procedure.
40 American men volunteered (they were being paid for participating) to take part in the study. They were told that it was a memory test when it was actually an experiment to test obedience levels.
When the volunteers arrived they were introduced to another participant who was a confederate. They drew lots to see who would be the teacher and who would be the learner. Beforehand, the draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher and the participants didn’t know this.
There was also an experimenter dressed in a grey lab coat.
The learner had to remember pairs of words and each time he made an error the teacher delivered a stronger (fake) electric shock. Labelled from slight shock through to intense shock to severe shock.
If the teacher refused to continue, the experimenter gave them prods.
What were the prods given by the experimenter?
- ‘Please continue/go on’.
- ‘The experiment requires that you continue’.
- ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue’.
- ‘You have no other choice, you must go on’.
What was Milgram’s baseline findings?
Every participant delivered shocks to 300 volts.
12.5% stopped at 300 volts.
65% continued to the highest level of 450 volts.
Qualitative data- Participants showed signs of: Extreme tension, sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan and dig their fingernails into their hands.
3 participants had uncontrollable seizures.
What were Milgram’s conclusions form this study?
He concluded that German people are not different. The American participants in the study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person. He suspected that there were certain Factors in the situation that encouraged obedience so decided to conduct further studies to investigate these.
Give some strengths for the baseline study?
Milgram’s findings were replicated in a French Documentary. The participants in the game were paid to give (fake) electric shocks to other confederates. Their behaviour was almost identical to Milgram’s participants- nervous laughter, nail-biting, and other signs of anxiety. This supports Milgram’s’ original findings and demonstrates that the findings were not just due to special circumstances.
Charles Sheridan and Richard King conducted a study using a procedure like Milgram’s. participants give real sharks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter. Despite the real distress of the animal 54% of the men and 100% of the women gave what they thought was a fatal shock. This suggests that the effects in Milgram’s study were genuine because people behaved obediently even when the shocks were real.
Give some limitations for the baseline study?
Low internal validity- Milgram’s procedure may not have been testing what he had intended to test. Milgram reported 75% of his participants believed that the shocks were real however 2 researchers argued that the participants behaved the way that they did because they didn’t really believe in the set up so they were play acting. Ginna perry listened tot he tapes of Milgram’s tapes and reported that only half of them believed that the shocks were real. This suggests that the participants may have just been responding to demand characteristics.
Milgram’s conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified. Every participant that was giving the fourth prod, (you have no choice you must go on) without exception disobeyed. According to social identity theory participants in Milgram’s study only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research (the experiment requires you to continue). When they were ordered to blindly obey an authority figure they refused. This suggests that social identity Theory may provide a more valid interpretation of Milgram’s findings.
Ethical issues- Deception: The allocation of the roles were already fixed beforehand, participants thought the shocks were real. Dina Baumrind criticised Milgram for deceiving because she believed that deception in psychological studies can have serious consequences for participants and researchers.
What are the situational variables? And name them.
Features of the physical and social environment which may influence a person’s behaviour.
Proximity, Location and Uniform.
How does proximity effect conformity?
How is this tested in the study?
Decreasing proximity allows people to psychologically distance themselves from the consequences of their actions, for example when the teacher and learner were physically separated the teacher was less aware of the harm they were causing to another person so they were more obedient.
In Milgram’s proximity Variation the teacher and learner were in the same room the obedience rates dropped from the original 65% to 40%.
In the touch proximity variation the teacher had to force the learners hands onto the electric shock plate obedience dropped further to 30%.
In the remote instruction variations experiment against the teachers instructions by telephone obedience reduced to 20.5% the participants also frequently pretended to give shocks.
How does location effect conformity?
How is this tested in the study?
The Prestigious University environment gave the study legitimacy and authority. The participants were more obedient because they perceived that the experiment shared this legitimacy and that obedience was expected.
A variation was conducted in a rundown office block rather than in the Prestigious Yale University setting of the baseline study in this location obedience fell to 47.5%.
How does uniform effect conformity?
Uniforms encourage obedience because they’re widely recognised symbols of authority. We accept that someone in a uniform is entitled to expect obedience because the authority is legitimate.
in the baseline study the experimental or a grade lab coat as a symbol of this authority. In one variation the experimenter was replaced with an ordinary member of the public in everyday clothes (confederate) the obedience rate dropped to 20%.
Give strengths for the situational variables research.
Other studies have demonstrated the influence of situational variables on obedience. Leonardo conducted a field experiment where he had three confederates dressed in different outfits- jacket and tie, milkman’s outfit and a security guard’s uniform. The Confederates individually stood in the street and asked passer-by to pick up litter or handing over a coin for the parking metre. People were twice as likely to obey the assistant dressed as a security guard than the one dressed in jacket and tie. This supports the view that a situational variable such as uniform does have a powerful effect on obedience.
Milgram’s research findings have been replicated in other cultures for example two researchers used a more realistic procedure than more Millgram’s to study obedience in Dutch participants. The participants were ordered to say stressful things in an interview to a confederate desperate for a job, 90% of the participants obeyed. The researchers also replicated Milgram’s findings concerning proximity. When the person giving the orders was not present, obedience decreased dramatically. This suggests that Milgram’s Findings about obedience are not just limited to Americans or men but also cross cultures and it applies to women too.
Give limitations for the situational variable research.
However replications of Milgram’s study are not very cross-cultural. Peter Smith and Michael Orne identified just two replications between 1968 and 1985 that took place in India and Jordan; both countries are culturally different from the US. The other countries involved are culturally similar to the US therefore it may not be appropriate to conclude that Milgram’s findings including those about proximity, location and uniform apply to people and all/most cultures.
Participants may have been aware that the procedure was faked. Martin Orne and Charles Holland made this criticism of his baseline study; they pointed out that it is even more likely in his variations because of the extra manipulation of variables. For example, the variation where the experimenter was replaced by a member of the public, even Milgram recognised that this situation was so contrived that some participants may well have worked out the truth. Therefore in all of Milgram’s studies, it is unclear whether the findings are genuinely due to the operation of obedience or because the participants pulled through deception and just play-acted.
Ethical issues- the participants were deceived when the roles were being allocated. Dina criticised Milgram for deceiving his participants because she believed that deception in psychological studies can have serious consequences for participants and researchers.
Agentic state
A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure (as their agent), someone who acts for or in place of another- they experience high anxiety. This frees us from the demand of our consciences and allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure.
What is the evaluation for the agentic state?
Strength- Milgram’s own studies support the role of the magnetic state in obedience. Most of Milgram participants resisted giving shocks at some point and often asked the experimenter who was responsible if the learner was harmed. And when the experimenter replied that he is the one responsible the participants often went through the experiment without any further objections. Milgram suggested that this shows that once the participants were no longer responsible for their own behaviour they acted more easily as the experimenter’s agent.
Limitation- The agentic shift doesn’t explain many research findings of obedience. For example, It doesn’t explain the findings of Steven Rank and Cardell Jacobsen’s study. They found that 16 out of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient. The doctor was an authority figure but almost all the nurses remained autonomous as did many of Milgram’s participants. This suggests that the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience.
