Obedience

Question 1

what is obedience?

Answer 1

A form of social influence where an individual changes their behaviour as a direct result of an order from an authority figure who has more power than they do in that particular situations.

Question 2

Who investigated obedience?

Answer 2

Millgram

Question 3

Outline Millgram’s aim

Answer 3

To investigate if ordinary american men would obey an unjust order from an authority figure to inflict pain on another person and to test out the
‘German are different’ hypothesis

Question 4

Outline Millgrams method

Answer 4

• 40 males were recruited by newspaper and a volunteer sample was used in the experiment.
• They were led to believe the experiment was about memory and learning
• They were then told it was about learning and punishment when they turned up to Yale university
• They met with the a confederate who was perceived to be an experimenter who was wearing a grey lab coat
• They also met with another confederate known as Mr Wallace.
• Participants were assigned the role of the teacher while Mr Wallace was assigned the role of the learner
• Mr Wallace would be in a separate room and the participant and the experimenter would be in the same room.
• The participants were required to ask Mr Wallace questions and every time Mr Wallace got the answer wrong the participants were required to administer an electric shock (which was fake but perceived as real by the participants). Each wrong answer resulted in an increase in voltage and it started from 15 volts going up to 450 volts.
• when participants would reach 150 volts Mr Wallace would start to protest and demanded to be released. At 300 volts he refused to answer anymore questions.
• From 330 volts Mr Wallace would stay silent
• The experimenter in the grey lab coat would have a script with prods that contained phrases such as ‘the experiment requires you to continue’ to encourage the participant to carry on whether they wanted to or not.

Question 5

Outline Millgram’s findings

Answer 5

• 65% of participants would obey and reach 450 volts
• All participants went up to 300 volts
• Many participants showed signs of distress such as twitching, sweating and pacing the room
• Three participants had uncontrollable seizures

Question 6

Outline Millgram’s conclusion

Answer 6

The ‘Germans are different’ hypothesis is clearly false and people will obey an authority figure and someone who has power over them in a particular situation.

Question 7

AO3 for Millgram

Answer 7

• Ethics
• Lacks population validity/androcentric/collectivist cultures
• Sheridan and king
• Hofling

Question 8

Outline other variations of Millgram’s study

Answer 8

Victim being silent throughout the whole experiment- 100% participants going up to 450 volts

experimenter giving order over the phone- 20% going up to 450 volts

teacher forced victims hand onto shock plate- 30%

Question 9

outline Hofling’s study

Answer 9

• Experiment was conducted on 22 nurses and they were contacted over the phone by a doctor to give a patient a drug which was unfamiliar to them but it was actually just a harmless sugar pill. if the nurse obeyed she would be breaking several rules as they needed an authorisation slip from the doctor
• 22 nurses of the 21 obeyed the doctor which shows us in real life situations people will obey orders even if they are incorrect from an authority figure.