Obedience

Question 1

Define obedience?

Answer 1

• When an individual follows a direct order from a figure of direct authority

Question 2

What was the location of Milgram’s study?

Answer 2

• Yale university

Question 3

Who were Milgram’s participants?

Answer 3

• 40 US men volunteered, paid $4.50

Question 4

What was Milgrams procedure?

Answer 4

• Each volunteer was introduced to a confederate and was asked to draw lots to see if they were a teacher or learner
• This was fixed so the naive participant was always a teacher
• The teacher asked the learner word pairs and if they got it wrong was instructed to shock them
• The shocks increased in 15v (15 - 450)

Question 5

What happened at 300v?

Answer 5

• the learner pounded on the wall and gave no response to the next question

Question 6

What happened at 315v?

Answer 6

• he pounded on the wall again and was silent for the rest of the procedure

Question 7

What were Milgrams findings?

Answer 7

• All participants went to 300v
• 12.5% stopped at 300v
• 65% went to 450v
• participants also showed signs of extreme tension such as sweat, trembles and three had ‘full blown uncontrollable seizures’

Question 8

What did other psychology students predict?

Answer 8

• Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the behaviour.
• They predicted that no more than 3% would continue to 450v
• Milgram also debriefed participants and found 84% were happy to have participated

Question 9

What did Milgram conclude?

Answer 9

• That German people were not different and that American participants would obey orders even if it meant harming people

Question 10

What is a strength of Milgram’s research? (R)

Answer 10

• One strength is that Milgram’s findings were replicated in a French documentary about reality TV
• The participants believed that they were in a pilot episode of ‘Le jeu de mort’
• They were paid to give fake electric shocks. 80% of participants delivered maximum shocks of 460v to an unconscious man. The behaviour was identical to Milgrams participants showing that people obey authority figures even if it means hurting others

Question 11

What is a limitation of Milgrams study? (I)

Answer 11

• A limitation is that Milgram may have not have been testing what he intended to
• Milgram reported that 75% of his participants believed the shocks were genuine.
• However, Orne and Holland argued that they believed that they were fake.
• Gina Perry confirms this as she listened to tapes of Milgram’s participants and reported only half believed the shocks were real. this suggests that they were responding to demand characteristics
  Counterpoint = Sheridan and King found that participants gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter. Despite the puppys real distress, 54% of the men and 100% of women gave a fatal shock. This shows the effects of Milgrams study were real.

Question 12

What is a limitation of Milgrams study? (A)

Answer 12

• Blind obedience may not be justified
• Haslam showed participants obeyed when the experimenter gave the first three verbal prods(please continue, the experiment requires you to continue, it is absolutely essential that you continue).
• However, every participant who was given the fourth prod (‘you have no other choice but to continue’) without exception disobeyed. The social identity theory explains that participants only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research and not when they were ordered to blindly obey an authority figure
• This shows that the social identity theory may be a more valid explanation