Obedience to Authority - Milgram Flashcards
What was the aim of Milgram’s research?
To see why people conformed to social roles.
What was the social context behind Milgram’s study?
The inhumane policies of the slaughtering of innocent people from 1933-45, is there any justification?
These policies may have originated from one single people, but they could only be carried out on a massive scale if a very large number of people obeyed others.
Who were the participants in Milgram’s study?
40 males between 20 and 50.
How much were the participants offered to take part?
$4.40
They were told this money was theres no matter what happened.
How did Milgram advertise and get the participants?
Newspaper advertisements.
Where did the study take place?
Yale University.
Who were the three people tat took part in each repetition of the study?
Confederate - rigged so thatchy would be the learner.
Participant - rigged so they would be the teacher.
The experimenter - explains the fake aims and lets the participant to continue using the prods.
How were the rolls of the participant and confederate assigned?
Pieces of paper.
What was the participant told the experiment was about?
The effect of punishment on learning.
Does it make a difference who is giving the punishment.
What were the participants asked to do?
Read out word pairs to the learner and punish him with an electric shock when a wring answer was given.
What did the shocks range from?
15-450 Volts, going up in 15 volt increments.
How many real shocks were given during the study?
1.
When was the real shock/s given?
To the naive participant before the study began prior to his role as a teacher.
Why was a real shock given to the naive participant?
To convince the subject of the generators authenticity.
What voltage was the real shock set to?
45 Volts.
What was the experiment actually testing?
Whether the learner would obey the experimenter.
How did the experimenter try and convince the teacher to continue?
Using standardised results - a sequence of ‘prods’ using as many as needed.
Always in order, if they refused after prod 4, the experiment was terminated.
Before the study, Milgram discussed with Yale professors, what was the mean percentage prediction fo how many people would obey to the 450 Volts?
12.5%
In a large number of the cases, what reached extremes that were rarely seen in social psychological lab studies?
Degree of tension.
Give some examples of degrees of tension that reached extremes within the study in many cases?
1 - Sweat.
2 - Dig fingernails into flesh.
3 - Stutter.
4 - Laughing fit.
What happened in one case that was so bad they had to stop the experiment.
One guy had a violent seizure.
How many of the participants stopped below 300 volts?
5.
how many of the participants stopped at 315 Volts when the earning stopped answering?
4.
How many participants continued up to 450 volts?
What percentage is this?
26.
65%
At what level of Voltage did the learning stop answering?
315 V.
