Obedience Flashcards
Define obedience
the tendency to comply with the commands of those in authority
Outline part of Milgram’s study into obedience
He aimed to question the attribution of the Germans and show that inhumane behaviour is actually situational
PROCEDURE ppts put in pairs (always one ppt and one stooge) the stooge was the learner and the ppt was the teacher
learner=attached to electrodes, teacher=controls the shocks in another room
ppts read out words for the learner to remember, if wrong, they got an electric shock, V’s increasing each time.
at 180V learner ‘cant stand the pain’, at 300V learner begged to be released, at 315V learner was silent.
if asked to stop, experimenter gave 4 prods.
What were the four prods in milgrams experiment?
1 prod=please continue
2 prod= this experiment requires you to continue
3 prod=it is essential that you continue
4 prod=you have no choice, you must go on
What did Milgram find?
ALL ppts shocked up to 300V
65% shocked all the way to 450V
People obeyed the authoritive figure no matter how much someone else was getting hurt as they had no responsibility.
Evaluation of Milgrams study
the study was unethical-they were deceived, protection from harm was broken and informed consent was not gained..HOWEVER there were no ethical guidelines until after this study
lacks ecological validity as it was carried out in a lab-may not have found this if a field study
Culture bias as the sample was white male americans, so cannot generalise
Other studies into obedience, Sheridan and King with the puppies
students were to train a puppy and punish it with real electric shocks
they could hear it squeal and see it suffer
although they complained, and some cried, they were reminded that they puppies failing to respond was a punishable error, so they continued
75% of people delivered the maximum shock
How does the puppy study support Milgram?
they knew it was immoral but continues to shock the puppy.
What were some variations of Milgrams study?
when the teacher and the learner were in the same room, the obedience rate fell from 65% to 40%
when the teachers had to force the learners hand to give the shock, it fell from 65% to 30%
the teachers were given support from 2 teachers that refused to obey, went from 65% to 10%
Explanations for obedience
Legitimate authority-the amount of social power held by the person giving the order-obey those of higher authority
The Agentic state-individuals become ‘agents’ for an external authority, the responsibility isnt theirs, its the external authority eg nazis and mai lai massacre.
Gradual commitment-obeying in small steps, they were getting ‘locked in’ making it harder to disobey, eg milgrams study did small jumps up in V’s, didnt seem that big of a deal.
