Obedience

Question 1

What is obedience

Answer 1

type of social influence which causes a person to act in response to an order given by another person. The person who gives the order usually has power or authority

Question 2

What are the reasons for obeying

Answer 2

❏ Human nature – dispositional (innate)
❏ Experience teaches us authorities are generally trustworthy
❏ Do as you’re told
❏ Personality/ Upbringing
❏ Assume people have more knowledge or expertise
❏ Don’t see consequences of actions
❏ People dislike confrontation
❏ Scared of consequences
❏ Rules

Question 3

Who is the psychologist that studied obedience

Answer 3

Milgram

Question 4

what was the aim of the procedure

Answer 4

The study aimed to investigate obedience to authority.

Question 5

What was the procedure of Milgrams obidience study

Answer 5

.Forty male American volunteers participated in a study, however they believed it was for a memory study
.Upon arrival, each volunteer met another participant, who was actually an accomplice of the researcher, Milgram
.They drew lots to determine roles: “Teacher” (T) and “Learner” (L),
.but the draw was rigged so the volunteer was always the Teacher
.An “Experimenter” (E), also an accomplice, explained the procedure

.The Experimenter instructed the Teacher to administer increasingly strong electric shocks to the Learner whenever the Learner made an error.
.The shocks, ranging from 15 to 450 volts, were fake, but the Teacher was unaware of this.

Question 6

what was an absence of a response treated as

Answer 6

a wrong answer therefore they were ‘shocked’

Question 7

What are the quantitative findings of Milgram’s study

Answer 7

❏ No participants stopped below 300 volts.
❏ Five (12.5%) stopped at 300 volts.
❏ 65% continued to 450 volts.

Question 8

what were the qualitative observations on how the participants were acting

Answer 8

Observations indicated that participants showed signs of extreme tension, sweating, trembling, biting their lips, groaning, and digging their fingernails into their hands.
Three participants had ‘full-blown uncontrollable seizures.

Question 9

What is the range of the shock levels

Answer 9

15- 450 volts

Question 10

How many stopped below 300 volts

Answer 10

None

Question 11

What percentages of ppts stopped at 300 volts

Answer 11

12.5%

Question 12

What percentage of people continued to 450 volts

Answer 12

65%

Question 13

What was the prediction of how may would continue to 450 volts

Answer 13

14 psych students estimated that no more than 3% of them would continue to 450 volts

Question 14

were the participants given an incentive to participate and if they did what was it

Answer 14

yes they did and it was $4.50 for just turning up

Question 15

where was the study conducted

Answer 15

yale university

Question 16

what would the experimenter use if the teacher was unsure about continuing

Answer 16

he used a sequence of 4 standards prods

Question 17

out of the 4 prods, the first 3 of the prods were mainly used to….

Answer 17

encourage the teacher to continue

Question 18

the 4th prod which states ‘You have no other choice, you must go on’ is the prod that……

Answer 18

demands obedience and ‘forces’ the teacher to obey despite them having the option to leave the study

Question 19

What is the ethical criticism for the 4th prod

Answer 19

The nature of the prods especially the 4th prod that was given by the experimenter may have made it seem to the teacher that they didn’t have the right to withdraw and that they were being manipulated into staying even though they were told they had the right to leave the study

Question 20

What is a limitation concerning the validity of Milgrams study

Answer 20

Lacks internal validity (how the data is represented within the population)
2 others suggested that the participants had guessed that the shocks were fake so Milgram wasn’t testing what he intended to test

Question 21

What is a counterpoint of O&H thinking that the shocks were fake

Answer 21

Another study was conducted where they gave real shocks to a puppy and 54% of males and 100% of females delivered what they thought was a fatal shock and &0% of Milgrams ppts believed that the shocks were genuine therefore showing that the obedience in Milgrams study might be genuine

Question 22

What is a strength concerning the validity of Milgrams study

Answer 22

Good external validity (how true it is for people outside of the sample)
Milgram argued that the lab-based relationship between the experimenter and PPT reflected wider real-life authority relationships. Research conducted by Hofling can support this as he studied levels of obedience un nurses in a hospital ward to unjustified demands by doctors were very high as 21/22 nurses obeyed. Therefore the processes of obedience in milligrams study can be generalised

Question 23

What is a strength concerning replication and research support of Milgrams study

Answer 23

Replications have supported Milgram’s findings
There was a French documentary that showed that in a reality TV, game show were paid to give fake electric shocks when ordered by the presenter to the ppts and 80% gave the maximum 450V to an apparently unconscious man and they also presented signs of anxiety like milgrams ppts which supports Milgram’s original conclusion

Question 24

What is a limitation concerning ethical issues of Milgrams study

Answer 24

Milgrams deception was criticized as the ppt believed that the allocation of the roles was randomly assigned however they were already pre-fixed and they also believed that the shocks were real when they were fake. This was a betrayal of trust that damages the reputation of psychologists. This study also caused a lot of psychological harm to the ppts