Obedience Flashcards
What is obedience?
A change in behaviour as a result of a request from an authority figure
How does obedience differ from conformity?
- Obedience differs from conformity as you are asking someone to change their behaviour rather than a sense of pressure to change their behaviour.
- with conformity many people are changing one person’s behaviour, with obedience one person is changing one persons or many peoples behaviour
Study Milgram (1963)- Aim
To investigate whether ordinary American civilians would obey an unjust order from a person in authority to inflict pain on another person
Study Milgram (1963)- Method
Milgram tested 40 participants in total. Participants were recruited through newspaper adverts. The volunteers were paid $4.50 to take part in the study. The study began with the participant being introduced to a man named Mr Wallace who they thought was a real participant but who was in fact a confederate. They were also introduced to the authority figure, in this case a man in a white lab coat, the experimenter Mr Wilkins. They were informed they were taking part in a study into the effect of punishment on learning and then asked to pick a sheet of paper to allocate the role. This was always rigged with the true participant always being the teacher. The other role was played by the confederate. The learner was taken to a room and strapped to an electric shock generator, he then had to learn word pairs. The teacher was taken to a separate room and given a sample shock. The teacher then had to test the learners knowledge of the words that he was given to learn. For ever incorrect answer the teacher had to administer an electric shock. A tape recording of the learner was played after each shock. The learner could be heard asking to be left out, complaining of heart trouble and eventually went silent. If the teacher refused to give a shock the experimenter would prompt the teacher to continue.
Study Milgram (1963)- Results
All participants gave at least 300volts of shock, 65% of all participants administered the full voltage.
Study Milgram (1963)- Conclusions
Ordinary American civilians will obey unjust orders if asked to do so by an authority figure. This study could explain some of the atrocities performed in warfare, such as the persecution of Jewish people in WWII
What are the four conclusions of Milgrams study?
- people do obey authority figures to such extent that they will harm another person
- shows that Germans are not different
- suggests that anyone would obey given the right circumstances
- not everyone is completely obedient 35% did not go to 450 volts despite being pressured by the experimenter
Strengths and weaknesses of Milgrams study
Milgram used a laboratory research method which lacks ecological validity making results less valid. This means that people may not behave this way in the real world - weakness
Milgram’s participants were self-selecting which meant that they may have had personality traits that were not characteristic of the general population this means that results cannot be generalised to the wider population- weakness
Unrepresentative sample as only males were used which is unrepresentative to how females would behave- weakness
Unrepresentative sample as only Americans were used which is unrepresentative to have other cultures would behave- weakness
Participant may have been trying to please the experimenter as participants were getting $4.50 which might have made the participants more obedient as they might have been concerned that they wouldn’t get the money if they didn’t do as they say- weakness
Conducted in a lab at Yale University, High level of control as Milgram could control who was teacher and ensure they were in the position to harm the learner and Repeat the study several times to make small changes to investigate factors which affect obedience such as the presence of an authority figure (where if an authority figure is not present people are not so obedient)- Strength
What are the four situational factors affecting obedience?
- proximity of participant to learner
- proximity of participant to authority figure
- location of the study
- effect of wearing a uniform
Proximity of participant to learner
When Milgram put the learner and teacher in the same room, obedience fell from 65% to 40% and when the teacher had to place the learners hand on the shock plate, obedience fell even more to 30%
Proximity of participant to authority figure
The proximity of the authority figure also affects the level of obedience. In another variation, after the experimenter had given the initial instructions, they left the room. All subsequent instructions were provided over the phone. In this variation, participants were more likely to defy the experimenter and only 21% of participants administered the full 450 volts
Location of study
Milgram conducted his original research in a lab of Yale university, which is prestigious, Ivy League university in Boston, USA. In order to test the influence that location had on obedience, Milgram conducted a variation in a run down office building in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The experimenter was no longer associated with the Yale University and was carried out by the Research Association of Bridgeport. In this variation the percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts dropped from 65% to 47.5%. Thus highlights the impact of location on obedience, with less prestigious locations resulting in a reduction in obedience
Effect of wearing a uniform
In most of Milgrams variations the experimenter wore a lab coat. Milgram examined the power of the uniform in a variation where the experimenter was called away and replaced by another ‘participant’ in ordinary clothes, who was in fact another confederate. In this variation, the man in ordinary clothes came up with the idea of increasing the voltage every time the learner made a mistake. The percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts in this situation dropped from 65% to 20% demonstrating the dramatic power of uniform
Bickman (1974)
Bickman also investigated the power of uniform in a field experiment conducted in New York. Bickman used three male actors: one dressed as a milkman; one as a security guard; and one in ordinary clothes. The actors asked members of the public to follow one of three instructions: pick up a bag; give someone money for a parking meter; and stand on the other side of a bus stop sign which said ‘no standing’. On average, the guard was obeyed on 76% of occasions, the milkman on 47% and the pedestrian on 30%
Study Hofling et al (1996)- Aim, participants, Method, results, conclusion
Aim- to investigate obedience to authority in a real world setting
Participants- 22 female nurses in a psychiatric hospital
Method- Dr Smith phoned and asked for a patient to be given 20mg of a drug called astroten. The bottle said that the maximum dose to be given is 10mg. The doctor said he was in a hurry and would sign for it later. It was against hospital rules as the nurses were not allowed to accept instructions over the phone and the dosage was double the maximum stated on the bottle.
Results- 21/22 nurses obeyed (95%)
Conclusion- real world settings with High ecological validity show very high levels of obedience to potentially harm someone
