Obedience

Question 1

what is obedience ?

Answer 1

A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power of punishment obedient behaviour is not forthcoming.

Question 2

what was Milgram’s procedure?

Answer 2

• 40 male participants recruited through newspaper adverts (aged 20-50)
• Led to believe they were participating in a study to improve memory + learning
• Confederate = experimenter + learner
• True participant = teacher.
• Learner tested with memory task + every time they got answer wrong = given “an electric shock” (would increase with more wrong answers starting at 15 volts up to 450 volts)
• Ppts did not want to continue or hesitating? Experimenter use sequence of 4 prods
• Ppts didn’t know shocks were fake

Question 3

what were the four prods that the experimenter gave if the teacher didn’t want to continue?

Answer 3

prod 1 - ‘ please continue ‘ or ‘ please go on ‘
prod 2 - ‘ the experiment requires that you continue ‘
prod 3 - ‘ it is absolutely essential that you continue ‘
prod 4 - ‘ you have no other choice, you must go on ‘

Question 4

What were Milgram’s findings? (quantitative data)

Answer 4

• every participant (100%) delivered shocks up to 300 volts
• 12.5% stopped at 300 volts (‘intense shock’)
• 65% continued to the highest level of 450 volts, they were fully obedient

Question 5

what were milgram’s findings? (qualitative data)

Answer 5

• observations
• signs off extreme tension
• many seen to ‘ sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan, and dig their fingernails into their hands ‘

Question 6

what were Milgram’s conclusions?

Answer 6

• German people are not ‘ different ‘
• The American participants in his study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person
• He suspected there were certain factors in the situation that encouraged obedience, so decided to conduct further studies to investigate these

Question 7

Evaluation - what does low internal validity do to milgram’s research? (+ counterpoint) - limitation

Answer 7

P: low internal validity
E: Orne & Holland argued that ppts didnt believe in the set up, so they were play acting
E: suggests that participants were responding to demand characteristics
COUNTERPOINT
- Sheridan & King conducted a study using a procedure like Milgram’s
- all student participants
- gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter
- despite stress of the animal, 54% of men and 100% of women gave what they thought was a fatal shock
- suggests the effects in Milgram’s study were genuine bc people behaved obediently even when the shocks were real

Question 8

Evaluation - what does an alternative interpretation of findings do to Milgram’s research?

Answer 8

P: alternative explanation
E: ppt identify with the experimenter as acknowlege science
E: conformity fell - identify with victim
L: first 3 prods mention science and the 4 th did not so conformity fell

Question 9

Evaluation - what does ethical issues do to Milgram’s research? - limitation

Answer 9

• participants were deceived.
• they thought allocation of roles were random, it was not it was fixed
• they thought shocks were real
• Milgram dealt with this by debriefing participants

Question 10

What was Hoflng et al’s research? (procedure + findings) - strength

Answer 10

P: good external validity
E: lab experiment reflected real life authority - Hofling et al arranged for an unknown doctor to call 22 nurses and ask each of them (alone) to administer an overdose of a drug that was not on their ward list (Astroten)
E: 95% of nurses (21/22) obeyed doctors with unjustified demands
L: the nurses obeyed without question