Outline and evaluate research into obedience (Milgram and Hofling) Flashcards
Summary
Using a laboratory experiment with repeated measures and volunteer sampling, milgram asked 40 male participants (recruited using a local newspaper advert and paid $4.50) to take part in an experiment on ‘memory and learning’
Greeted by experimenter who was dressed in a white coat (an authority figure who was a confederate of the experiment)
Genuine participants paired with middle-aged man (confederate) who they believed to believed to be another participant. Both assigned role of either teacher or learner
Although they were told allocation of roles was random, genuine always teacher. Teacher watched learner being strapped into electric chair.
Teacher instructed to teach the learner a series of word pairs. If learner made an error, genuine ordered to give an electric shock, starting at 15V and increasing by 15V each time
Maximum shock was 450V, which could be enough to kill a person. Teacher was given a sample shock to convince them procedure was real, and then placed in a separate room so they could hear (but not see) learner.
Learner gave a predetermined set of responses to the test, giving mainly incorrect answers. As the shocks increased the learners response became more dramatic; e.g. when resching 315V he became silent
If the teacher objected to giving the shocks, experimenter responded with series of verbal prompts (e.g. “the experiment requires you to continue, teacher)
Milgram found that many of the participants repeatedly argued with the experimenter but continued to obey.
100% of participants administered shocks of up to 300V to the learner. 65% administered maximum shock of 450V, far beyond what was labelled “danger: severe shock”.
Concluded that people show very strong levels of obedience to an authority figure, even when their orders go against normal moral codes
Limitation m
Low internal validity
Meaning the study did not accurately measure what it intended to measure
This is because critics such as Orne and Holland (1968) argued that the participants behaved the way they did because they guessed the shocks were fake. Perry’s (2013) research supports this
This suggests that the study may not have been measuring obedience, as the participants would have found it much easier to obey the instructions knowing there were not any genuine consequences of their actions.
However, in interviews with Milgram’s participants after the study, 70% said they thought the shocks were genuine. Sheridan and King’s (1972) research supports this as they found that people behaved in the same way with real shocks.
Strength m
He argues that the artificial relationship between experimenter and teacher was no different to obedience in wider settings
This is because it simply involved a person with lower status following instructions from an authority figure
Hofling and Bickman found that, in their own field experiments, participants were highly likely to obey simply because someone was perceived to have legitimate authority, for example, nurses following the instructions of a doctor who they thought was real
Therefore, although the experiment may have been artificial, the process it used to study obedience can be generalised to different settings
H summary
Using a field experiment, with independent groups design and opportunity sampling, Hofling posed as Dr Smith, and telephone 22 nurses in either a public or private hospital
Instructed them to give patients 20mg of Astrofen, at a dose that was double the recommended dose on the packet
In fact the drug was not a real drug and Hofling had the permission of the hospital to do this. The nurses were stopped from actually administrating the drug by a confederate.
It was a test of obedience because nurses are not mean to take instructions over the phone and require the doctor to sign the prescription. Also, nurses should challenge any doctor who recommends an unusual dose.
21 out of 22 nurses obeyed the doctor’s instructions over the phone. Concluded that people show very strong obedience to authority in real life, natural conditions.
Strength h 1
High external validity due to its high mundane realism
Which is when the procedure seems like real life
This is because the nurses were ordered to administer a dangerous dose of a drug in their own working environment
Making it very easy to generalise the findings to an everyday real life situation
Strength h 2
High control over variables meaning the study is high in reliability
This is when the procedure of a study can easily replicated and consistently produces similar findings
This is because variables such as the script used in the phone call and the type of drug and prescription required were all standardised
This means that the study can be easily replicated and therefore, is reliable
