Obedience to authority

Question 1

Obedience

Answer 1

Complying with an order from another person to carry out an action. The person who gives the instruction has power or authority

Question 2

Blind obedience

Answer 2

To comply with an order without questioning it

Question 3

Milgram (1963) aim of the study

Answer 3

To find out if ordinary people are capable of harming others on the orders of an authority figure

Question 4

Procedure of the study

Answer 4

Participants, who thought they were taking part in a study of memory and learning, were invited to Yale University where they met Mr Wallace, a confederate in the study. They watched as Mr Wallace was strapped into a chair and they were asked to give him increasing levels of shock if he failed to remember word pairs. The shocks were not real, but participants believed they were. They were in a different room, but they could hear his screams and protests and were instructed to continue by Mr Williams, an experimenter.

Question 5

Findings of the study

Answer 5

65% of participants continued until the highest level of shock was reached (450 volts).

Question 6

Conclusion of the study

Answer 6

Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure even to the extent of killing a person.

Question 7

Strengths of the study

Answer 7

Milgram produced similar results with 40 different participants and extraneous variables were controlled: reliable
Information gained in this study about obedience helps us understand things like why people commit crimes: Generalisable

Question 8

Weaknesses of the study

Answer 8

Lacks ecological validity as it was a laboratory experiment, so it doesn’t replicate real life
Unethical because participants showed severe signs of stress and were deceived