OBEDIENCE: MILGRAMS YALE STUDY Flashcards
what is obedience?
when you get given and follow orders by someone in a position of authority
what were the aims of milgrams study?
the study aimed to measure how far participants would go in obeying the experimenter’s commands to deliver increasingly painful shocks, even when they felt uncomfortable doing so.
what was the procedure of Milgrams study?
participants were told they were taking part in a learning experiment where they would act as a “teacher” and administer electric shocks to a “learner” (a confederate of the experimenter)
when they gave incorrect answers to questions; the participant believed the shocks were real, and were instructed to increase the shock level with each wrong answer, even though the learner would eventually start to complain and beg to stop, with the experimenter pressuring them to continue if they hesitated;
what were the findings of milgrams study?
100% of participants went uptown 300V, 65% went to 450V and most participants complained and many became anxious and distressed.
what are the obedience levels in the variations of milgrams study?
baseline Yale study: 65%
run down office: 47.5%
teacher and learner in the same room: 40%
teacher forces learners hand onto the plate: 30%
orders by the phone: 20.5%
public gave instructions: 20%
AO3: how is ‘high levels of control” a strength to milgrams study into obedience?
one strength to milgrams study of obedience is that it has high levels of control. this is because he used the same recording for all participants and used the exact same prods to all participants when encouraging them to carry on. they also had high control over all extraneous variables, this means that it has high internal validity and high replicability. therefore, by having high levels of control we can claim causality, however, it lacks ecological validity and we may be unable to generalise the findings due to the high levels of control in an artificial environment.
AO3: how is ‘real life application’ a strength to milgrams study into obedience?
one strength to milgrams study of obedience is that it has real life application. for example, Hofling carried out a study with nurses, he got someone to ring them who asked them to give a patient medication 3x the dose required. he found that 21/22 nurses broke the rules and followed the rules by following the rules over the phone. therefore, this supports the idea that individuals do obey to authority in society, even if it means breaking rules.
AO3: how is ‘ethical issues’ a
limitation to milgrams study into obedience?
one limitation to milgrams study into obedience is that there are ethical issues. this is because the participants in the study were deceived as they believed that the participant allocation was random, and that the shocks they were giving to the learner were real. this then subjects the participants to psychological harm as they became distressed and anxious when taking part. therefore, this is an issue as Milgram didn’t respect his participants by decieving them and causing them psychological harm, however, Milgram did deal with this by giving all the participant a debriefing at the end of the experiment to talk them through what they were looking into.
AO3: how is ‘gender bias’ a limitation to milgrams study into obedience?
one limitation to milgrams study into obedience is gender bias. this is because all the participants were male students. this means that the research suffers from beta bias as it assumes that women act the same as men without actually looking into their behaviour. this is an issue as in previous research, they found that women are more likely to obey to authority. therefore, we have to take care when generalising the research beyond the individuals it was conducted on.
