Obedience- situational variables

Question 1

proximity

Answer 1

obedience decreased to 40% when teacher could hear learner and to 30% in touch proximity condition

Question 2

location

Answer 2

obedience decreased to 47.5% when study moved to run down office block

Question 3

uniform

Answer 3

obedience decreased to 20% when member of the public was the experimenter

Question 4

research support

Answer 4

Bickman showed power of uniform in field experiment

Question 5

Lack of internal validity

Answer 5

some of milgrams procedures contrived so not genuine obedience

Question 6

Cross cultural replications

Answer 6

cross cultural findings support Milgram but almost all studies in similar cultures to USA so not very generalisable

Question 7

control of variables

Answer 7

systematically altered one variable at a time such as proximity to see what effect it would have
All the other procedures and variables were kept the same as the study was replicated over and over with more than 1000 participants in total

Question 8

the obedience of alibi

Answer 8

Mandel (1998)- argues that situational variables offer an excuse or alibi for evil behaviour eg the Nazis were simply obeying orders and were victims of situational factors