Obedience To Authority

Question 1

Define obedience

Answer 1

Obedience is behaving as instructed to by an authority figure. Authorities figures have status and / or power over others.

Question 2

Describe the process of Milgram’s experiment

Answer 2

• 40 male participants came to Yale University from a newspaper advert to take part in what they thought was a study about the effect of punishment on learning
• they were met by the experimenter who was a man in a white lab coat ( actually a confederate )
• they were introduced to a 47 year old man who they were told was another participant called Mr Wallace ( confederate ) who said he had a weak heart
• both of them were asked to pick notes out of a hat to determine who would play the role of teacher and learner. It was rigged so that the participant was always the teacher.
• the participant was then told that his role was to punish the learner if they made a mistake on a memory test by administrating an electric shock, increasing the voltage each time the learner made a mistake
• the learner and teacher were taken to separate rooms , with the experimenter in the same room as teacher.
• the electric shock machine was fake but very convincing. To do the shocks, the teacher pressed switches on the machine. Each switch wa labelled with a voltage rating, starting at 15 volts and rising in increments of 15 volts to 450. They were also labelled going from ‘ slight shock ‘ and ‘moderate shock’ to ‘ danger : severe shock’ and at the end ‘ XXX’
• as the shocks increased mr Wallace demanded to be released from the experiment , screamed, kicked the wall, complained about his weak heart , refused to answer, and finally , became silent.

Question 3

What was the role of the experimenter?

Answer 3

He ensured that the teacher continued with the experiment. When the teacher showed reluctance, he promoted him to continue using one of four statements:

• please continue
• the experiment requires that you continue
• it is absolutely essential that you continue
• you have no choice, you must continue

Question 4

What were the results?

Answer 4

• all participants gave shocks up to 300 volts

- 65% gave shocks to the maximum

Question 5

What was the effect on the participants?

Answer 5

• they felt a high level of stress
• their symptoms included sweating, trembling and in some cases, anxious and hysterical laughter
• despite this, most were obedient and willing to inflict potentially lethal shocks on a man with a weak heart

Question 6

What are the advantages to Milgram’s experiment?

Answer 6

• it is supported by antihero study. Hofling arranged for nurses to receive a phone call from an unknown doctor and be instructed to deliver a dose of medicine twice the maximum amount. The medicine was not on the stock list and they were breaking hospital rules but 95% were obedient despite the potential danger
• there was also another study that supports it. Psychologists asked participants to administer reel ( but unbeknownst to them small ) electric shocks to a puppy. 75% was the obedience rate even though they could see the puppy and hear it yelp in pain .
• Milgram’s methodology was a laboratory experiment. This means his study was very well controlled and so extraneous variables would not have affected the validity of the study.

Question 7

What are the negatives to Milgram’s experiment ?

Answer 7

• participants were deceived about the true nature of the experiment as they were told it was about memory not obedience. Therefore, they did not give their informed consent. They were also led to believe the shocks were real
• the participants became very distressed and may have even thought they had killed Mr Wallace and so they suffered psychological harm
• several asked to leave but were told they were not allowed. This violated their right to withdraw.