Obedience Flashcards
What is obedience?
A type of social influence that involves an individual following a direct order, usually from an authority figure and usually in order to avoid a punishment.
Milgram’s baseline research
1963
Aim: to investigate why individuals (particularly Germans in WW2) follow orders, even when they know they are wrong or harmful.
Procedure designed to assess obedience levels. Investigating two possible reasons for us to obey:
1. SITUATIONAL- situational factors have to occur for us to obey eg. not being able to see consequences.
2. DISPOSITIONAL- Result of certain personality factor.
Milgram’s baseline research- Procedure
- 40 American male volunteers (from a newspaper advert) at Yale University.
- A ppt and a confederate (Mr Wallace) were assigned either teacher/ learner by an experimenter, but the ppt did not know the roles were fixed so they would always be the teacher.
- The learner and teacher could not see each other, but the experimenter and teacher were in the same room.
- The teacher would ask questions, and if incorrect, the learner would be ‘shocked’ (these were not real but Mr Wallace acted like he was in pain)- scale of 0V to 450V.
- The experimenter encouraged the volunteer to continue even when Mr Wallace became unresponsive.
Milgram’s baseline study: Findings
- All ppts continued to 300V- 12.5% refused to go any further.
- 65% continued to 450V- this would be a fatal shock if real.
- Ppts under extreme stress- 3 had seizures.
- Unexpected findings- it was predicted 3% would continue to 450V.
- All ppts debriefed- 84% felt glad to have participated from follow up questionnaire.
Milgram’s baseline study: Conclusions from findings.
- There were certain factors in the situation that encouraged obedience.
- Challenged idea that war crimes were committed by deviant personalities.
Milgram’s baseline study: Strengths
1) Good external validity- whilst conducted in lab, environment reflected relationship between experimenter and ppt in real life.
2) Control of extraneous variables- through lab environment.
3) (CP for ethical issues) No guidelines for ethical concerns at time- research challenged current understanding of human behaviour- could outweigh costs (and used debriefing)
Milgram’s baseline study- Weaknesses
1) Ethical issues- Deception through belief shocks were real, told they were participating in memory study, fixed draw of role, Mr Wallace was actor.
No protection from psychological harm- visible anxiety, 3 had seizures.
Difficulty with withdrawal due to experimenters encouragement.
2) Unrepresentative sample- American males between 20-50- not generalisable to wider population.
3) Ppts paid- could encourage obedience.
4) Low internal validity- some thought it was not reality. (Hollander and Turowetz)
Hollander and Turowetz’s study
72% of ppts believed the learner had not been harmed, making claims like “If it was that serious you woulda stopped me” or “I just figured that somebody had let him out”
Research support (nurse studies)
HOFLING’s research provides support as high levels of obedience in real life hospital situation in response to authority figure of doctor.
Found 21 out of 22 nurses obeyed unjustified demands they were given, supporting theory of obedience from Milgram’s study.
Challenging research (nurse studies)
RANK AND JACOBSON’s research challenged Milgram and Hofling.
Created more realistic situation that nurses were receiving orders in eg. familiar doctors name, issuing of drug they were familiar with, valium.
Only 2 out of 18 nurses obeyed the orders, showing that in realistic scenario, obedience less likely to occur.
Milgram’s situational variables- results
(% of fully obedient ppts)
65% - Original
Proximity:
Learner in same room = 40%
High proximity (forcing learners on plate) = 30%
Low proximity (prods over phone) = 20.5%
Two teachers (confederate administered shocks) = 92.5%
Location = 47.5%
Uniform = 20%
Social support (2 confederates refused to continue) = 10%
Women = 65%
Milgram’s situational variables- Conclusions
- Two teachers variation massively increased obedience as ppt may feel they have evaded responsibility.
- Social support had largest impact- ppts felt more confident, less social pressure to continue.
- Low proximity decreased obedience the most within the proximity variations, social pressure from experimenter was more removed.
AO3: Milgram’s situational variables - Supporting evidence.
Other studies have demonstrated the influence of situational variables on obedience.
Bickman (1974) had three confederates dress differently- jacket and tie, milkman, guards uniform. Asked passers-by to carry out a task. People twice as likely to obey security guard rather than the jacket and tie.
Supports Milgram conclusion that uniform conveys authority- situational factor likely to produce obedience.
AO3: Milgram’s situational variables - Cross cultural variations
- Findings have been replicated in other cultures.
- Miranda et al. (1981) found an obedience rate of over 90% amongst Spanish students.
- Suggests Milgram’s conclusions about obedience are not limited to American males, but are valid across cultures and apply to female too.
AO3: Milgram’s situational variables - Counterpoint for cross cultural variations
Smith and Bond (1998) made the point that these replications take place in Western, developed societies (eg. Spain and Australia).
Culturally not very different from USA, so it cannot be concluded that Milgram’s findings apply to people everywhere.
