Obedience and Milgram

Question 1

What is obedience?

Answer 1

Complying with the demands of an authority figure

Question 2

How does obedience act positively for society?

Answer 2

Society could not operate in an effective manner unless rules and laws are obeyed and people in authority are acknowledged as having the right to give orders

Question 3

Give an example of the negative consequences of obedience?

Answer 3

The Holocaust

Question 4

What personal interest did Milgram have in finding explanations for the Holocaust?

Answer 4

He came from an American Jewish family who had fled Europe for America to escape the Holocaust

Question 5

Who was Milgram’s teacher?

Answer 5

Asch

Question 6

What was Adolf Eichmann’s excuse for his actions in the Holocaust (carrying out die Endoslung, killing thousands)?

Answer 6

He was only following orders

Question 7

What was the aim of Milgram’s study?

Answer 7

To see if individuals would obey the orders of an authority figure that incurred negative consequences and went against one’s moral code

Question 8

Who were Milgram’s sample?

Answer 8

40 American males aged 20-50 who had self-selected through a newspaper advert

Question 9

What was the name of the Confederate participant who played the learner in every experiment of Milgram’s?

Answer 9

Mr Wallace

Question 10

How were Milgram’s participants deceived?

Answer 10

They were told that the experiment concerned the effects of punishment on learning and that they would be randomly selected to play the teacher or learner

Question 11

How were the shocks administered and how far did they go in Milgram’s study?

Answer 11

The real participant was taken to a different room and placed in front of a shock generator that went from 15 volts and increased by 15 volts until it reached 450 volts

Question 12

What task was given to the participants of Milgram’s study?

Answer 12

They read out a series of paired association tasks to which they received a pre-recorded set of answers from the confederate, and the teacher was instructed by the experimenter to give a shock each time the answer was wrong, increasing the intensity of the shocks

Question 13

At what volt level of Milgram’s experiment did the confederate start to protest, then refuse to answer the questions and then stop answering?

Answer 13

150 volts, 300 volts, 330 volts

Question 14

What happened if the participant seemed reluctant to continue in Milgram’s experiment?

Answer 14

A series of prods were given by the experimenter; “the experiment requires you to continue” and “you have no choice, you must go on”

Question 15

What quantitative results did Milgram gain?

Answer 15

62.5% of participants gave shocks up to 450 volts and in a condition in which Mr Wallace banged on the walls 65% obeyed to 450 volts

Question 16

What qualitative results did Milgram gain?

Answer 16

Many participants showed distress such as twitching, sweating or giggling nervously, digging their nails into their flesh and verbally abusing the experimenter. Three had uncontrolled seizures. Others showed little signs of discomfort

Question 17

What was Milgram’s American study considered?

Answer 17

A pilot study for use in Germany and his other research

Question 18

Why is Milgram’s experiment actually considered a controlled observation?

Answer 18

There is no independent variable in this study; in his variations of the study there are independent variables

Question 19

How many participants had regrets about taking part in Milgram’s study?

Answer 19

2%

Question 20

What was included in Milgram’s debrief?

Answer 20

Being introduced to the unharmed confederate to prove he was unharmed

Question 21

What percentage of participants did 40 psychologists believe would obey in Milgram’s study?

Answer 21

1%

Question 22

According to Perry, how many participants believed the shocks were real, reducing internal validity?

Answer 22

50%

Question 23

What reduces the external validity of Milgram’s study?

Answer 23

Androcentrism; Sheridan and King performed a study involving reaal shocks on a puppy and found 54% of males obeyed but 100% of females obeyed up to an apparent 450 volts

Question 24

What did Burger find to support the temporal validity of Milgram’s study?

Answer 24

An obedience rate of 70% with no real difference between male and female participants

Question 25

Who carried out a natural experiment regarding obedience and who were his participants?

Answer 25

Hofling et al.; nurses

Question 26

How many of the nurses in Hofling et al.’s study obeyed and what did they obey?

Answer 26

21 out of 22 nurses obeyed; gave twice the maximum dose of a medication because a doctor told them over the phone without signing the consent forms

Question 27

Name the variations of Milgram’s study and their obedience rates

Answer 27

Touch proximity (30%); uniform (21%); proximity with authority figure (21%)