obedience

Question 1

what is obedience?

Answer 1

in direct response to an order from another person

Question 2

milgram (1963) - aim

Answer 2

investigate if ordinary people will obey an unjust order from an authority person and inflict pain and injure an innocent person

Question 3

milgram (1963) - method

Answer 3

• 40 american men recruited via a newspaper advert, all volunteers
• met the researcher and other participants (confederates) at yale. they ‘drew lots’ for their positions, but this was fixed so the real participant would be the teacher
• ‘learner’ was strapped to a chair, when they made a mistake recalling a list of paired words, the ‘teacher’ had to administer a shock of increasing strength
• shocks started at 15V, increasing by 15 to 450V
• they continued till the participant refused to continue or the max voltage was reached
• if they tried to stop, the experimenter responded with verbal prods

Question 4

milgram (1963) - results

Answer 4

• all participants went to at least 300V
• 65% administered the full 450V
• observations reported that participants showed signs of distress and tension like sweating etc

Question 5

milgram (1963) - conclusion

Answer 5

under the right situational circumstances, ordinary people will obey unjust orders from someone perceived as a legitimate authority figure

Question 6

give a strength of milgram’s study
1/1

Answer 6

the use of a lab study means that the experiment was highly controlled. therefore any ev’s were controlled and we can establish cause and effect with higher certainty. this then increases internal validity as we can conclude that changes in the dv are the result of the iv. furthermore, the high levels of control means the study can be easily replicated to assess reliability

Question 7

give a limitation of milgram’s study
1/4

Answer 7

broke several ethical guidelines. he deceived his participants as they believed the study was about how punishment affects learning, as well as by the rigging of the role allocation that was actually pre-determined. participants also weren’t protected from psychological harm, many showed signs of distress during and after the study. these mean that the study cannot be replicated to assess for reliability

Question 8

give a limitation of milgram’s study
2/4

Answer 8

the study lacks ecological validity since it was conducted in a lab, which is very different from real-life situations. we are therefore unable to generalise any results or conclusions to real-life situations of obedience and cannot conclude people would obey less severe instructions the same. therefore more research is required to assess real-life obedience

Question 9

give a limitation of milgram’s study
3/4

Answer 9

his study lacks population validity due to his biased sample of 40 american male volunteers from an individualistic society. we are therefore unable to generalise the results to other populations, specifically collectivist cultures or females, since we cannot conclude that these would obey in a similar way

Question 10

give a limitation of milgram’s study
4/4

Answer 10

the internal validity has been criticised. orne and holland (1968) suggest participants went to higher voltages as they didn’t believe the shocks were real and they weren’t fooled by the experiment set up. therefore milgram may not have been testing what he intended to, lowering the internal validity. milgram argued up to 70% of participants believed the shocks were real, however the tape recordings show many more vocalised doubt about the shocks legitimacy