Obedience Flashcards
What was the context for Milgram’s Studies?
The capture of Adolf Eichmann
He was a key architect of The Holocaust who was eventually captured and trialled for war crimes and crimes against humanity after world war 2
His defence was that he was ‘only following orders’
What struck people was how ordinary he was - a faceless bureucrat. Nothing remarkable or any key differentiating feature to suggest why he should be capable of committing acts of such atrocities and others in his position wouldn’t.
Inspired Ardent’s ‘Banality of Evil’ - confronts the idea that many ordinary people could be made to do awful things due to an authority structure
Although it is important to note that The Holocause included many acts that were not those of obedience to authority so Milgram can provide at best only part of the explanation.
Social psychology
Whilst Asch was motivated by studying unambiguous stimuli following Sherif’s studies; Milgram aimed to assess social influence using more consequential behaviour than Asch’s line-length studies. Milgram was successful in doing this.
In particular he wanted to investigate cross-cultural differences in obedience. He had however predicted, after consulting experts and interviewing the public that people would not obey and deliver the lethal shocks in his experiments. The levels of obediences observed were drastically higher than expected. Hard to make cross-cultural comparisons when everyone obeys.
What is obedience?
Obedience as a form of conformity/ social influence - presence of other people influencing ones behaviour
Obedience to authority: complying with orders from a person of higher social status within a defined hierarchy or chain of command. An example of the functioning of legitimate power where an internalised framework of norms, values, customs and procedures specifies that such influence is appropriate.
Motives underlying obedience are usually a mix of respect for the expertise of authority and fear of the consequences of disobedience
What is the importance of Milgram’s studies?
Milgram’s study has been of huge influence and provides a valuable insight into the human conditon and can be utilised to help understand phenomena such as genocide and war crimes.
Cornerstone of the scientific understanding of obedient behaviour
Paved the way for advances in understanding obedience and human behaviour as a whole
What was the experimental design in the ‘Obedience to Authority’ Studies (1963)?
Recruited members of the public using a newspaper ad for a study of memory and the role of punishment in learning
Two people take part at the same time, but one is actually a confederate.
They draw roles from a rigged ballot that ensures the naive participant is always the teachers, and the confed is the learner.
The NP observes the confed being strapped into a chair to demonstrate the severity and is then taken to a separate room with the experimenter.
The NP is instructed to test memory for word pairs via an intercom.
Every time the learner gives an incorrect answer they are to be given an apparent electric shock of increasing strength of 15V each time by the teacher.
The shocks start at 15V and go up to 450V and are labelled to indicate their increasing severity and implied danger to life with 450v labeled lethal or XXX
The learner does not actually receive these shocks but the teacher is made to believe they do and this is reinforced by giving the teacher a 45V shock at the start and the impact of the experimental scenario is so high that participants believed they were shocking the learner.
Milgram scripted the whole scenario including the learners responses to shocks and experimenter prods.
What were the predicted results of Milgram’s initial experiment?
Based on interviews with experts and the general public Milgram anticipated that 90% would deliver the slight shot, 60% moderate, less than 20% strong and no one would deliver the intense shock
What were the results of Milgram’s initial studies?
100% delivered the very strong shock, 90% the intense shock and 80% lethal
In the first experiment Milgram carried out there was no feedback from the observer which explains the high levels of obedience.
Appears that people pay more attention to the task of carrying out instructions than their consequences.
Suggests evil results from inattention rather than attention
Needed to reduce obedience so as to be able to make cross-cultural comparison
Introduced different variations on feedback from learner.
Learner bangs on wall: 65% deliver lethal shock
Baseline condition - learner complains of shocks and screams over intercom: 62.5%
New baseline condition - learner screams scripted complaints and reports suffering from a heart condition, refuses to go on then is silent - implying death - 65%
What were the prods from the experimenter?
Many participants expressed reluctance to continue
Experimenters were given 4 escalating scripted responses - highly standardised instructions
Please continue
The experiment requires that you continue
It is absolutely essential that you continue
You have no other choice, you must go on - only one that is a direct command
Reassure teachers expressing concern that although the shocks may be painful they cause no permanent damage
Prods are simple requests or persuasion with scientific justification and only one is a direct order.
They deny participants right to withdraw
Have been found in follow-up studies to be the main contributor to the sense that participants followed orders blindly.
In the real life situations Milgram is trying to replicate orders would be of a destructive nature and likely from someone the individual doesn’t identify with who provides little justification.
It is likely that the surprisingly high level of obedience observed could be exaggerated because of the use of prod 1 and 2 in addition to the intense artificial set up - a legitimate theory of obedience cannot be based on results from flawed experimental design.
Were the people who obeyed sadists?
The high level of obedience does not mean that participants didn’t care about what the learner was feeling
Observations of participants illustrate the intense psychological conflict they experienced.
Their stress manifested itself physically, verbally and through emotions.
‘Twitching stuttering wreck’
How did Milgram vary situational factors?
Milgram compared different experiments in which he’d varied different factors
This is a limitation of his studies as they were conducted with different samples and highlights the number of confounding factors at play
Manipulated situational variables like proximity as well as legitimacy of authority
Milgram increased the closeness and contact of the learner
Pound on the wall
Hear them scream and complain via intercom then no sound.
See them as shocks are delivered in the same room
Hold their hand onto shock plate
Increasing contact decreases obedience as the learner provides the teacher with an ally against the experimenter - like the case of the single dissenter in Asch line studies.
Milgram decreases the closeness and contact with the experimenter
Placed the experimenter in a different room so only able to communicate via telephone
Obedience decreased to 21% delivering lethal shock
Cases of teachers lying to experimenter about delivering shocks
Undermined legitimacy
Two different experimenters in the room argued about whether or not the shocks should be delivered
90% stop after 150V when the learner refused to continue
No participant delivered 450v shock
Modelling behaviour of disobedience
Two co-teachers who refuse to continue
Obedience decreases to 10%
Still lack the authority of an experimenter
Status and prestige
Experimenter status - Replace experimenter with another participant, therefore removing their status. This reduced obedience so that only 20% delivered lethal shock.
Institutional prestige - shabby office building in the nearby industrial city of Bridgeport rather than Yale. Obedience decreased to 48%
Considering key factors affecting obedience is crucial to building a theory so results from Milgram’s variants should be recognised as a vital foundation for the study of obedience while acknowledging that it is incomplete.
What contradictory evidence did Hofling et al. (1966) find?
When ordered by an apparent authority via phone call 21/22 nurses administered double the maximum dosage of astroten on the label.
This shows high levels of obedience can be achieved even when the subjects are distant from the authority.
Counters Milgram’s claim of the effect of proximity or at least that it can be overridden.
Implies the involvement of more factors
Highlights the reductionist approach taken by milgram
However subsequent studies in different countries with various paradigms have demonstrated the generality of the effect Milgram first demonstrated such as Mantell (1971)
What factors did Haslam and colleagues’ meta-analysis (2014) identify as contributing to increased obedience?
Identified 8 features of the paradigm that induced participants to commit acts of obedience by running statistical analysis
Included facets Milgram had yet to cover
Legitimacy of experimenter and institutional context
Proximity teacher and learner
Distance between experimenter and teacher
Lack of social support for disobedience
Experimenters directiveness
Consistency
Group pressure on the teacher to disobey
Intimacy of the relation between teacher and learner
What are the ethical issues with Milgam’s Study?
Milgram’s study has been of huge influence and provides a valuable insight into the human conditon and can be utilised to help understand phenomena such as genocide and war crimes.
BUT Participants suffered during the experiments and his procedure would be impossible to use today under modern ethical regulations as a result of the levels of stress, anxiety and guilt.
Controversial: toss up between the value of the research to society vs the effects on participants
Lack of informed consent - good practise to tell participants what the research is about; if the information that’s withheld would make a difference to people agreeing to participate - not legitimate. Agreed to take part in an important study into learning and memory.
Experimenter’s denial of participant’s right to withdraw - should be the case that participants can pull out when they want to. No contemporary study could inform participants that ‘it is absolutely essential that you continue/ you have no choice you must go on’ despite being blatantly untrue. Prevents serious barriers to withdraw; although some did manage to do so.
Regulations were introduced that control the use of human participants in psychological research as a direct response to the liberties taken in this study.
Participants suffer during procedure - very uncomfortable for them to administer the shocks.
Negative after-effects - living with the knowledge that you’ve administered a potentially lethal shock to another participant without their consent.
Kelman (1967) “Do we, for the purpose of experimentation, have the right to provide such potentially disturbing insights to subjects who do not know that this is what they are coming for.”
However it can be argued that if been had not been obedient then the complaints about the study wouldn’t exist. Milgram had anticipate the results to be the opposite which in itself indicates there is nothing objectively wrong with the experimental design.
Milgram’s response: all participants were debriefed at the end of the study and reassured them that their behaviour was normal. But it is unlikely that the debriefing alone was sufficient to ease the participants psychological suffering.
Not everyone took this well: ‘I stood there.. I was angry at having been deceived. I resented the whole situation. I was a little embarrassed at not having stood up earlier, or seen what was going on earlier, and I was not totally unconcerned about my own heart rate. What if I had a heart condition?’ (Blass 2004)
Follow-up questionnaire responses (not all returned)
84% glad or v glad to have taken part (may have had to convince themselves that it was worthwhile/ rationalise it)
15% neutral
1.3% sorry or v sorry (problematic even if its a small number)
50% reported having experienced discomfort during the procedure.
30% had been bothered by the study since taking part/ 7% bothered q a bit.
Kohlberg (1974): “Milgram himself was unwittingly the moral victim of the authority of science’ just as his subjects were. Serving the authority of science under the banner of ‘objectivity’ he, himself, inflicted pain on others for the greater social welfare.”
The experimenter is exposing the teacher to mental discomfort and increasing levels of stress and let them suffer in the name of science.
Had Milgram critically analysed his experimental procedure before carrying out his experiment he would have .. known the results beforehand (since he was willing to make his participants suffer in the name of science, his participants would do the same)’(Brandt1978)
Participants describe it as traumatic to this day/ couldn’t think clearly/ lost their sense of a moral compass/ once committed or made the decision to continue that’s it.
Milagram’s failure to adhere to rigorous methodology and ethical approach severely undermines the generalisability and practical utility of his studies (Brannigan).
How do sociocultural factors affect obedience?
Sociocultural factors:
people are socialised into obeying authorities e.g teachers, parents and bosses.
The ordinary person who shocked the victim did so out of a sense of obligation.
We expect authority figures to be legitimate and trustworthy
What is whistleblowing?
Whistleblowing: a specific form of disobedience in which an insider reports corruption or unethical practise within a whole organisation.
In real life context disobedience in the face of corrupt, mendacious, or malicious authority has consequences.
Moral rebels such as whistleblowers are frequently harassed or ostracised and rarely receive the respect they deserve making it a rare behaviour(Monin, Sawyer and Marquez, 2008)
Whistleblowing becomes less likely the longer someone remains part of an organisation (Goldie et al. 2003) likely due to social identification (being a member of that organisation is part of ones identity) and increasing awareness of potential costs.
Necessary to stop malpractice in medicine or mistreatment of prisoners of war
How does agentic shift affect obedience?
The subordinate in a hierarchical system does not accept personal responsibility for their actions but defers it to someone higher up in the organisation.
Participants switch from seeing themselves as being personally responsible to seeing themselves as the agent of the experimenter.
Research contradicts the claim that participants who were obedient feel less responsible than disobedient ones.
In post-experimental interviews both obedient participants and defiant participants attributed equal responsibility to the experimenter. Although defiant participants saw them as more responsible than obedient participants.
Therefore not supported by evidence.
Moreover it has been criticised by Darley (1922) for its purely dichotomous and all or nothing character of being in one state or another.
Loses sight of the relationships and obligations the participants faced.
