Obedience - Milgram

Question 1

Milgram - procedure

Answer 1

• 40 American males
• took place at Yale university
• p’s = teachers and c’s = learners
• learners completed a memory test
• everytime the learner gave a wrong answer, the teacher had to give them and ‘electric shock’
• shock voltage increased with the number of mistakes
• 15v - 450v
• every p gave the shocks up to 300v
• 12.5% stopped at 300v
• 65% continued until 450v
• if p’s wanted to stop, they were given 4 prods by the experimenter to continue

Question 2

Milgram - evaluation - stregth

Answer 2

• Research support
• findings were replicated in a documentary
• 80% p’s gave maximum shock of 460v
• behaviour was almost identical to that of Milgram’s p’s
• supports Milgram’s idea about obedience to authority

Question 3

Milgram - evaluation- limitation

Answer 3

• Low internal validity
• Milgram may not have tested what he intended to test
• Milgram reported that 75% of his p’s said they believed the shocks were real - However psychologists argued that p’s behaved as they did because they didn’t believe in the set up and so were play-acting
• Suggests p’s may be responding to demand characteristics trying to fulfil the aims of the study