Obedience

Question 1

What does the topic of Obedience consist of?

Answer 1

• Milgram’s research

Question 2

What was Milgram’s baseline procedure?

Answer 2

• Milgram was curious about how the German people followed Hitler in Nazi Germany
• 40 American men took part believing it was a ‘memory experiment’
• One pps and one confederate took place in a rigged draw to decide who was teacher and who learner
• the learner supposedly had to remeber 2 words and when they forgot the teacher would shock them with voltage ranging from 15-450 volts
• The experimenter used ‘prods’ to encourage the teacher to continue shocking the learner

Question 3

What did Milgram find?

Answer 3

• Every pps delivered the shock to 300v and 65% to 450v
• pps showed signs of tension e.g sweating trembling and 3 has seizures

Question 4

What percent of people were predicted to obey? What support did participants receive post experiment? And in what format and what percent of the participants were glad to have participated?

Answer 4

• 3% according to 14 psychology students
• They were given a debrief and were assured their behavior was normal
• They took a questionnaire and 84% said they were glad to have participated

Question 5

What did Milgram conclude?

Answer 5

• German people are not just ‘different’. The American people were willing to obey orders despite the knowledge they were seriously injuring and maybe even killing someone
• He suspected certain factors encouraged obedience, and decided to investigate them

Question 6

What research supports Milgram’s findings?

Answer 6

• A fake documentary called ‘The Game of death’ where pps were paid to give (fake) electric shocks to other pps for money
• 80% of the pps did the maximum 460v to an apparently unconscious man
• Pps nervous behavior was almost the same as in Milgrams investigation

Question 7

Was there any Ethical issues regarding Milgrams study?

Answer 7

• Not only were the pps deceived (they believe the experiment was a test of memory) but they were also not protected from harm, all showed signs of extreme and anxiety and 3 were so distressed that they had seizures this could be considered highly unethical

Question 8

What is a potential counterpoint to the ethical issues presented in this study?

Answer 8

• When looking at the cost-benefit analysis, it may be suggested that the harm done to the participants was justified due to what Milgram’s study taught us about obedience in humans. In addition to this the pps were given a debrief after the experiment and assured that their behavior was normal considering the situation