Obedience Flashcards
What was the procedure of Milgram’s study?
Milgram’s study involved 40 participants at a time over a series of conditions, each varying some aspect of the situation to calculate its effect on obedience. Participants were told it was a study of how punishment affects learning.
There were two experimental confederates: an experimenter, and a 47-year-old man who was introduced as another volunteer participant.
The two participants drew lots to see who would act as the ‘teacher’ and who the ‘learner’. This was rigged so that the real participant was always the teacher and the ‘fake’ participant the learner.
The teacher was required to test the learner on his ability to remember word pairs. Every time he got one wrong the teacher had to administer increasingly strong electric shocks, starting at 15 volts and then continuing up to the maximum of 450 volts in 15-volt increments.
In the voice feedback study, the learner, sitting in another room, gave mainly wrong answers and received his (fake) shocks in silence until they reached the 300-volt level (very strong shocks).
At this point he pounded on the wall and then gave no response to the next question.
He repeated this at 315 volts and from then on said/did nothing. If the ‘teacher’ asked to stop at any point the experimenter had a series of ‘prods’ to repeat, such as saying, ‘it is absolutely essential that you continue’ or ‘you have no other choice, you must go on’.
What were the findings for Milgram’s study?
Before study Milgram asked psychiatrists, college students and colleagues to predict how long participants would go before refusing to continue.
- Consistently these groups predicted that vey few would go beyond 150 volts and only 1 in 1,000 would administer the full 450 volts.
- However contrary to these expectations in the voice feedback study, 65% of participants continued to the maximum shock level of 450 volts.
In fact all participants went to 300 volts with only 5 (12.5%) stopping there.
Signs of anxiety- sweating, trembling, biting of lips etc.
3 subjects had seizures.
What are the evaluation points for Milgram’s study?
- Low internal validity
- Martin Orne & Charles Holland (1968) argued that participants were play acting as they didnt believe the set up was real
- Gine Perry (2012) listened to the tapes of Milgram’s participants and reported that only around half of them believed the shocks were real and that two thirds of them were disobedient
Suggesting that participants may have been responding to demand characteristics.
Ethical issues
What were the ethical issues for Milgrams study?
Participants were decieved in multiple ways:
* Participants though the allocations of roles of both teacher and learner were random but they were not as Milgram’s confederate was always the learner
- Participants believed the elctric shocks were real- could’ve psychologically harmed them
- Milgram debriefed the participants afterward to ensure they understood the real intentions of the experiments
What power did uniform have in Milgram’s study?
In the baseline study, the experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of his authority (a kind of uniform).
* In one variation, the experimenter was called away because of an inconvenient telephone call right at the start of the procedure. The role of the experimenter was taken over by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ (really a confederate) in everyday clothes rather than a lab coat. Obedience rates dropped to 20%
Research has shown that uniforms can have a powerful impact on obedience- they are easily recognisable and convey power and authority, which can be symbolised in the uniform itself
Bushman (1988) carried out a study where a female researcher, dressed in either a ‘police style’ uniform, as a business executive or as a beggar, stopped people in the street and told them to give change to a male researcher for an expired parking meter.
When she was in uniform (72%) of the people obeyed, whereas obedience rates were much lower when she was dressed as a business executive (48%) or as a beggar (52%)
When interviewed after, people claimed they had obeyed the woman in uniform because she appeared to have authority.
What was the effect of location on obedience in Milgram’s study?
Milgram conducted a variation in a run down office block rather than in Yale uni (setting of baseline study)
- Prestigous uni environement gave Milgram’s study legitimacy & authority
- Ppts were more obedient in this location as they percieved that the experimenter shared this legitimacy & that obedience was expected
- However obedience still quite high in the office block because the ppts percieved the ‘scientific nature of the procedure’
What were the conclusions made by Milgram’s study?
- Under certain circumstances, most people will obey orders that go against their conscience
- When people occupy a subordinate position in a dominane hierarchy, they become liable to lose feelings of empathy, compassion and morality, and are inclined towards blind obedience
What is the agentic shift?
- When orders come from a figure of authority, we can easily deny personal responsibility because it is assumed that they will take ultimate responsibility.
- When this happens we become ‘agents’ of an external authority
The agentic shift is when the fully obedient person undergoes a psychological ajustment or ‘shift’ and they see themselves as an agent of external authority (authority of the authority figure)
What 2 factors did Milgram claim that obedience occurs to?
The external authority: Authority of the authority figure
The internal authority: Authority of our own conscious
What is the agentic state?
Milgrams interests were sparked by the trials of Nazis who had worked in the death camps: their defence was that they had simply been obeying orders.
This led Milgram to look at Agentic state as an explanation of obedience i.e an individual carrying out the orders from an authothority figure, acting as thier agent (the shift is from autonomy to agency)
What is an autonomous state?
Opposite of agentic state - the person has autonomy over their actions and can act accoring to their own principles.
Why do people adopt an agentic state?
-The need to maintain a positive self-image
* Actions performed under the agentic state are, form the participants perspective, virtually guilt-free, however inhumane they might be
What is legitimacy of authority?
Refers to the perceived right of an authority figure to have power and control over others.
- This can be based on various factors, such as expertise, position, and tradition.
Why do people adopt an agentic state?
The need to maintain a positive self-image
- Actions performed under the agentic state are, form the participants perspective, virtually guilt-free, however inhumane they might be
What is destructive authority and destructive obedience?
Destructive authority: When power is used for destructive purposes
Destructive obedience: When obedience is used to harm others
