obedience milligrams research

Question 1

procedure

Answer 1

milgram recruited 40 male participants through newspaper advert and posters , for a study on memory
participants recruited were between 20-50 years unskilled or professionals
a confederate mr Wallace was the learner and the true participant was the teacher . the experimenter was in a lab coat played by an actor .
participants told they could leave at any time .
the learner was strapped in a chair in another roman wired to electrodes ,the teacher was required to give the learner an increasingly severe electric shock each time they made a mistake.
the shock level starts at 15 and rose through 30 levels to 450 volts .
when the teacher got to 300 volts the learner pounded on the wall and gave no response to the next question . after the 315 volts shock the learner pounded on the wall and was no further response after .
when the teacher turned to the experimenter for guidance they were told no answer is a wrong answer . experimenter used a list of 4 prods such as “please continue” “please go on”

Question 2

findings

Answer 2

no participants stopped below 300 volts
12.5% (5) stopped at 300 volts
65% continued to 450 volts
qualitative data was collected showing signs of extreme tension , sweat , stutter etc
all participants were debriefed
84% glad they participated

Question 3

low internal validity
weakness

Answer 3

Orne and holland 1968
argued the participates behaved the way the did because they didn’t believe in the set up , they guess the electric shocks weren’t real
in which case milligram wasn’t restating what he aimed to test .
Gina Perry 2013
her research confirms this , she listened to tapes of milgrams participants and many of them expressed doubt about the shocks .
Sheridan and king 1972
conducted a similar experiment on puppies with real shocks 54% males and 100% females thought it was a fatal shock
- suggests milligrams study was genuine bc people behaved the same way with real shocks
milgram reported that 70% of his participants said they believed the shocks were geuine

Question 4

good external validity
strength

Answer 4

milgrams study may at first glance appear to lack external validity because it was conducted in a lab . however the central feature of the central feature of this situation was then relationship between the authority figure and the participant .
milgram argued that the lab environment accurately reflected wider authority relationship in real life.
Hofling et al 1966
studied nurses on a hospital ward and found that levels of obedience to unjustified demands by doctors were very high 21/22 obey
milgram can be generalised to other situations

Question 5

supporting replication
strength

Answer 5

the game of death is a documentary about reality tv presented on French tv in 2010 , it includes a replication of milgrams study .
the participants believed they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new game show called la zone xtreme . they were paid to give fake electric shocks , when ordered by the presenter , to the other participants who were in fact actors , in front of a studio audience .
in a remarkable confirmation of milgram results , 80% of the participants delivered the maximum shock of 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man . their behaviour was almost identical to that of milgrams participants , nervous laughter and signs of anxiety .
supports milgrams original conclusions .

Question 6

an alternative explanation sit
weakness

Answer 6

according to sit the key to obedience lies in group identification . in milgrams study participants identified with the experimenter , they identified with the science of the study .
when obedience levels fell this was because the participants identified less with the science and more with the victim or with another group .
Halsam and Reicher 2012
analysed the behaviour of the participants in milgrams study , they looked at how a person behaved every time one of the four prods was used . the first three prods don’t demand obedience , they appeal for science the 4th prod demands obedience . every time the 4 th prod was used the participant quit .

Question 7

ethical issues
weakness

Answer 7

Diana Baumrind 1964
very critical of the ways milgram deceived his participants . milgram led participants to believe that the allocation of roles as teacher and learner was random , but in fact as fixed . perhaps the most significant deception involved the participants believing the electric shocks were real . baumrind objected because she saw deception as a betrayal of trust that could damage the reputation of psychologists and their research .