Obedience - Milgram

Question 1

What is obedience ?

Answer 1

A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. Usually receiving the order from a position of authority.

Question 2

Why did Milgram want to create a study on obedience ?

Answer 2

• Milgram was Jewish
• He was interested to see whether the Germans were different and where they more likely to be obedient

Question 3

What was Milgram’s baseline procedure ?

Answer 3

• He only recruited men to participate
• Happened in Yale university
• There was a learner (a confederate) a teacher ( the participant) and an experimenter
  -Participant read out the questions
• Learner tries to repeat the words and if its wring the teacher delivers an electric shock
• The shock was able to reach up to 450V and started at 15V ( there was 30 increments)
• The shocks weren’t wear however the participant didn’t know this
• participants were told to continue even if the actor were showing ‘pain’
• as the voltage increased some participants show signs of resistance.

Question 4

What did Milgrams students think would happen ?

Answer 4

They guessed the amount of participants that would give the highest shock would be 3% when it was actually 65%

Question 5

What was the pre-procedure for Milgram’s study ?

Answer 5

• Mr Wallace was always the learner
• confederate wore lab coat
  -people received money on arrival
• Told they could leave at any point

Question 6

What were the findings from the base-line experiment ?

Answer 6

• 100% of participants continued to 300V
• 12.5% stopped after this
• 65% continued to 450V
• participants showed extreme tension
• 84% said they were glad they took part

Question 7

What are the strength of Milgrams baseline study ?

Answer 7

Research support
His findings were replicated in a French documentary
Focused on a game show were the participants believed they were the contestants
They completed a variations of Milgram’s study infront of a TV audience
80% delivered the maximum shock
Showed nervous behaviour just like Milgram’s study

Question 8

What are the limitations of Milgrams baseline study ?

Answer 8

Low internal validity
- Milgram reported that 75% believed that the shocks were genuine
- Orne and Holland argued participants behaved the way they did because they didn’t believe in the set up so were acting for demand characteristics

Ethical issues
- the participants were deceived
- the participants thought that role allocation was random
- they also thought the shock’s were real