obedience: milgram's research Flashcards
why did milgram (1963) want to study obedience?
- milgram examined justifications for acts of genocide offered by those accused at the nuremberg war criminal trials
- their defence was based on “obedience” - that they were just following orders from their superiors
what was the aim of milgram’s study?
to understand how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person
who was involved in milgram’s study?
- 40 american men aged 20-50
- from the area around new haven, conneticut, USA
- they were volunteers recruited through a newspaper advert and were paid $4.50 for participating
- study was supposedly on memory
describe the baseline procedure
- volunteers arrived at milgram’s lab and were introduced to another pp (confederate of milgram’s)
- they drew lots to see who would be the teacher (T) and learner (L)
> the draw was fixed so the pp was always T - experimenter (E) was also involved
> also a confederate, dressed in a grey lab coat - L (mr wallace) was strapped to a chair and wired up with electrodes
- T (real pp) was given a small shock to experience for themselves
- L had to remember a pair of words
- each time he made an error, T delivered a stronger electric shock by pressing switches on a ‘shock machine’
> the switches were labelled from ‘slight shock’ to ‘danger - severe shock’ - when T got to 300 volts, L pounded on the wall and then gave no response on the next question
- at 315 volts he pounded on the wall again but was then silent for the rest of the procedure
what were the four standard ‘prods’?
- prod 1 - ‘please continue’ or ‘please go on’
- prod 2 - ‘the experiment requires that you continue’
- prod 3 - ‘it is absolutely essential that you continue’
- prod 4 - ‘you have no other choice, you must go on’
what were the baseline findings?
- every pp delivered all shocks up to 300 volts
- 12.5% stopped at 300 volts (‘intense shock’)
- 65% continued to 450 volts (highest level, they were fully obedient)
what qualitative data did milgram collect?
observations such as:
- pps showed signs of extreme tension
- many of them were seen to ‘sweat, tremble, bite their kips, groan and dig their fingernails into their hands’
- 3 had ‘full-blown uncontrollable seizures’
what other data did milgram find before the study and what does this show?
- before the study, he asked 14 psychology students to predict the pps’ behaviour
- the students estimated that no more than 3% of the pps would continue to 450 volts
- this shows that the findings were unexpected, and that the students underestimated how obedient people actually are
how were the pps debriefed?
- all pps in the baseline study were debriefed afterwards
- they were also assured that their behaviour was entirely normal
- they were also sent a follow-up questionnaire and 84% said they were glad to have participated
what conclusions did milgram draw?
- german people are not ‘different’
- american pps in his study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person
- he suspected there were certain factors in the situation that encouraged obedience, so decided to conduct further studies to investigate these
evaluation: research support from hofling (1966)
- nurses were ordered by a doctor over the phone to administer 20mg of ‘astrogen’, double the dosage printed on the label (all fictional)
- 21/22 started to give medication until stopped by another nurse nearby
- when interviewed after, they all said that they were regularly asked by doctors to go against their training and the rules
- demonstrates real-world importance of the outcome of administering an unknown drug and dose
evaluation: limitation, rank and jacobson (1977)
- replicated hofling’s method, but used a real drug which the nurses had heard of
- did not get similar results (2/18)
- they believed that the nurses’ knowledge of the drug, specifically the consequence of an overdose, meant they could justify their defiance to the doctor more easily
- highlights important factors that influence obedience
evaluation: research support from french documentary about reality TV (beauvois et al. 2012)
- pps in ‘game’ believed they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new show called le leu de la mort (the game of death)
- they were paid to give (fake) electric shocks (ordered by presenter) to other pps (actors) in front of a studio audience
- 80% delivered the maximum shock of 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man
- their behaviour was almost identical to that of milgram’s pps: nervous laughter, nail-biting and other signs of anxiety
- this supports milgram’s original findings about obedience to authority, and demonstrates the findings were not just due to special circumstances
evaluation: high internal validity (milgram)
reported that 75% of his ps said they believed the shocks were genuine
evaluation: low internal validity (orne and holland 1968)
- ps behaved as they did because they didn’t really believe in the set up, so they were ‘play-acting’
- ps may have been responding to demand characteristics, trying to fulfil the aims of the study
evaluation: low internal validity (perry 2013)
- listened to tapes of milgram’s ps
- only about half of them believed the shocks were real
- 2/3 of these pps were disobedient
evaluation: not low internal validity (sheridan and king 1972)
- conducted a study using a procedure like milgram’s
- ps gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter
- despite the real distress to the animal, 54% of the men and 100% of the women gave what they thought was a fatal shock
- suggests that effects in milgram’s study were genuine as people behaved obediently even when shocks were real
evaluation: external validity - the extent to which the results of a study can be generalised to other settings or over time
- only men from from one specific geographical location so low ecological validity
- low temporal validity as people may be more willing to speak up against superiors
- not entirely able to be generalised for this reason
evaluation: generalisability
- lab experiment is artifiical and not like everyday life
- in an unfamiliar context, pps may behave in unusual ways so their behaviour cannot always be generalised beyond the research setting (low external validity)
- pps are usually aware they are being tested in a lab (though they may not know why)
- this may give rise to unnatural behaviour (demand characteristics)
evaluation: reliability (dolinski et al. 2015)
- replicated milgram’s findings with 80 male and female pps
- lab experiment so high control over extraneous variables
evaluation: reliability (burger)
- replicated milgram’s findings but only up to 150 volts to get ethical consent
- replication is possible due to high level of control
- new extraneous variables are unlikely to be introduced when repeating an experiment
evaluation: milgram’s conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified (haslam et al. 2014)
- milgram’s ps obeyed when E delivered the first 3 ‘prods’ but every p who was given the 4th disobeyed without exception
- according SIT, ps in milgram’s study only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research (eg. prod 2)
- when they were ordered to blindly obey an authority figure, they refused
- SIT may provide a more valid interpretation of milgram’s findings
evaluation: ethical issues - deception
-ps thought that allocation of roles (T and L) was random but it was fixed
- also thought shocks were real
- milgram dealt with this by debriefing pps
- also means they cannot give fully informed consent
evaluation: consequences of deception (baumrind 1964)
criticised milgram for deceiving his pps because she believed that deception in psychological studies can have serious consequences for pps and researchers
