Obedience To Authority - Milgram

Question 1

Obedience

Answer 1

Form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish.

Question 2

Example of obedience to authority

Answer 2

• hitler carried out inhumane acts
• Milgram tests the ‘Germans are different theory’
  Germans are different - Germans are ready to obey power and has basic character deficit
• it is a DISPOSITIONAL explanation

Question 3

Situational explanation + dispositional explanation

Answer 3

• Milgram argued that people would commit atrocities if required to do so by an authority figure (situational)
• Germans have basic character deficit and are ready to obey regardless of the fact of the act they are carrying out (dispositional)

Question 4

Milgram experiment

Answer 4

Aim: investigate level of obedience and investigate the ‘Germans are different’ theory
Procedure:
- male pps selected via advertising at Yale uni
- they were paid 4 dollars
- pp paired with another, the draw was fixed and the roles were predecided (learner was a confederate)
- learner was called mr Wallace, taken to a room and electrodes were strapped up infront of teacher
- Wallace has a heart condition
- thr teacher went into the room and saw a shock generator from 15-375-450 (slight, severe, xxx)
- pp didn’t know this was false, thought shock and everything was real
- teacher reads pairs of words that learner had to remember, gets shocked if wrong then increase voltage
- at 180, the pp shouted they clouding take this anymore
- 300, begged to be released
- 315, silence
- if pp asked experimenter to continue, there were standardised prods in sequence said
RESULTS:
- ALL pps shocked up to 300 volts and 65% shocked to 450 volts
- 14 defied and 26 obeyed
- many showed signs of nervousness like trembling and shaking and digging into fingernails
- 14/40 had laughing fits
- all pps were debriefed after
CONCLUSION:
- normal ordinary Poole will obey even if their actions may be detrimental
Germans are different theory NOT supported.

Question 5

Good evaluation

Answer 5

• good external validity - shows relationship between authority figure and pp, lab reflected real life authority,

supported by HOFFLING, where 21/22 nurses were willing to exceed maximum dose told by dr smith, without knowing whether he’s real or not. The nurses were told to give 20mg of ASTROFEN to Mr Jones, when max dose was 10mg.

Also

Le jeu de la mort - game of death which was a replication of the Milgram study, the results were the same, 80% delivered the max, behaviour was similar with nervous laughter

Question 6

Bad evaluation

Answer 6

• low internal validity, we aren’t clear if the procedure is measuring what it’s meant to measure, we don’t know if they’re showing demand characteristics. Researchers believed that the pps behaved that way due to not beleivinf the set up. Perry (2013) found out that a learner knew the experiment
• ethical issues, researcher was concerned on how Milgram decieved the pps, made them believe the roles of teacher and learner were randomly allocated, and that the shocks were real
  Other criticism: unable to give full consent, difficult to withdraw