Obedience Flashcards
What is obedience?
A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. Person issuing order is usually a figure of authority who has power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming
Who designed a procedure to test obedience?
Milgram
Outline Milgram’s baseline procedure
- 40 males volunteered to take part
-randomly assigned P’s to role of ‘learner’ or ‘teacher’ ( actually fixed)
-Naïve participant always got role of teacher - an experimenter was also involved dressed in a grey lab coat
-experimenter ordered P’s to give a strong shock to learner located in another room (15-450V fake)
What were Milgram’s baseline findings?
-all P’s delivered shocks to 300 V
-12.5% stopped at 300 volts
-65% continued to 450V
- also collected qualitative data using observations
- P’s showed signs of extreme tensions e.g. sweat. tremble, seizure
Other data of Milgram’s study
- before study Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants behaviour , estimated 3% will go to 450V
-P’s in baseline were debriefed, in follow up questionnaire 84% happy to have taken part
What were Milgram’s conclusions?
-that German people are not ‘different’.
-The American participants in his study were willing to obey orders even if they might harm another person
What ethical issues were in Milgram’s study?
-p’s were deceived
-thought the allocation of teacher and learner was random but in fact it was fixed
-also thought the shocks were real
-Led p’s to feel psychologically distressed
What is a counterpoint for the ethical issues in Milgram’s study?
-behaviour would not be natural if they knew aims
-could be argued the benefits outweigh the costs
-Milgram’s studies can be justified on the grounds of what we have learnt
‘the dangers of blind obedience’
-Milgram also debriefed his p’s & 84% said they were glad to have participated
What research support is there for Milgram’s study?
-Findings replicated in a French documentary
-focused on a game show made especially for the programme
-p’s in game believed they were contestants in pilot episode for new show
-paid to give fake electric shock(ordered by presenter) to other p’s (actors) in front of studio audience
-80% delivered maximum shock of 460V to unconscious man
-behaviour identical to Milgram’s e.g. nail biting
Why does Milgram’s study have low internal validity?
-may have not been testing what it intended to test
-Orne & Holland argued p’s behaved the way they did because they didn’t believe set up -‘play-acting’
-Perry, listened to tapes of Milgram’s p’s & reported that only about 1/2 believed shocks were real
-2/3 of them were disobedient
-p’s may have been responding to demand characteristics.
Why does Milgram’s study lack population validity?
-Milgram used 40 white, American males
-findings cannot be generalised to other populations e.g. females
-not known whether females would also show high levels of obedience to authority
