Obedience Flashcards
What is obedience
Form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order from a perceived person of authority and there is the implication that the person wouldn’t have responded in this way without the order
Why was the aim of the study
Milgrjm wanted find out whether ordinary people not justbgerman soldiers would obey an authority figure even when the figure was unjust and they were require to injure another person
What happened before the study
He recruited 40 males volunteers as participants they acted as the teacher there were also two confederates the experimentar authority figure and the learner to study how punishments affect learning
What happened during the study
The teacher was told he had to administer increasing shocks to the learner each time he made a mistake on a learning task the learner sitting in the other room mainly gave wrong answers and received fake electric shocks but made pain noises starting at 15 v to 450v if they were unsure bout continuing they were given prods such as please continue
What were the findings for all, 12.5 and 65
All participants went up to 300 volts 12.5 stopped at 300 65 continues all the way to 450 v participants showed extreme tension and many were seen to tremble shiver and bite their lips or even pass out
What was conclusion of the study
Ordinary people will obey an authority figure even if they know what they’re doing is wrong
Research to support obedience
Halting et al did an experiment with 22 nurses they were asked by a doctor to give a dangerous dose of an unfamiliar drug to patients 95% of the nurses obeyed even though they knew it may be dangerous for the patient they obeyed as the doctor was an authority figure this is a strength as it supports milgrams study in real life situations and with real authority figures thus we can be more confident in the conclusion obtained by milgrams study
Ubrepresentive
Milgrams study were only Male participants milgrams replicates the experience tnand found that women’s were less likely to be as obedient as men consequently the experiment is gender biases and cannot be applied to females also they only focus on individualist cultures the obedience rate in collectivist culture may be less than in the individualist cultures as they care about each other and don’t want to inflict pain upon another thus study cannot be generalised to the wider population
