Research Into Obedience Flashcards
What was milgrams overall procedure
• Laboratory experiment, Yale University, to see how punishment affects learning.
• Volunteer sample of 40 male participants, aged 20-50. Paid $4.50.
• The participant was always the ‘Teacher’ and there was two confederates-one acted as a ‘learner’ and one as an ‘experimenter’.
• The first confederate ‘The Experimenter’ was wearing a white lab coat and the second confederate was participant Mr Wallace.
• The ‘learner’ gave wrong answers and received fake shocks starting at 15 volts and going up in 15volt steps until 450volts.
• The ‘learner’ was in a different room, and cried out after each shock.
• If the participants didn’t want to carry on, the ‘experimenter’ would say ‘prods’ like ‘please continue’
What did milgram find?
• All participants obeyed and gave shocks up to at least 300volts.
• 12.5% of participants stopped at 300volts.
• 65% of participants continued all the way to 450 volts.
How did milgram investigate proximity and what were the findings ?
Reduced Proximity: The Experimenter gave orders to the Teacher via a telephone in a different room.
DROPPED
TO
20.5%
FROM BASELINE
65%
Why did proximity influence obedience
The participants were more likely to obey the authority figure in the original study as they were in the agentic state and felt as though the experimenter would take on the responsibility (diffusion of responsibility). In this variation, when the orders were given by the authority figure via the phone, the participants were in the autonomous state and believed they were responsible for their own actions and therefore less likely to obey.
How did milgram investigate location and what were the findings ?
Milgram repeated his study in a Run-down office block.
DROPPED TO
48%
FROM BASELINE
65%
Why did location influence obedience?
The location of the original experiment adds to the legitimacy of the authority figure giving the order. Several participants remarked that the location of the study, gave them confidence in the integrity of the people involved.
When repeated at the in the less prestigious location of a run-down office block, fewer people obey the instructions given to them as they did not value the experiment with the same integrity as they did at Yale University.
How did milgram investigate uniform and what were the findings?
Bickman (1974) carried out a field experiment in New York in which passers-by were given one of three orders: pick up a paper bag, lend money to a stranger for a parking meter, stand at another place at a bus stop. In one condition the experimenter was dressed as a security guard. In another condition the experimenter wore normal clothes.
Security guard condition- 82% of participants obeyed the request to lend money.
Normal clothes condition- 36% obeyed the request.
Why did uniform influence obedience?
Uniforms are easily recognisable and convey power and authority, they offer a sense of legitimacy to those who wear them.
What is a strength of milgrams study?
One strength of research into situational variables affecting obedience is that we can make a direct comparison between levels of obedience in the two variations studied. For example, with research into the situational variable of location, when comparing obedience levels in the two locations, all other variables were standardised (kept the same), so we can conclude with some certainty that the drop-in obedience in the run-down office block was due to the change in location, giving a cause and effect.
What was orne and hollands criticism?
criticised Milgram’s research into situational variables affecting obedience and claimed that the participants were ‘going along with the act’ when they ‘shocked’ the learner. They argued that participants did not believe they were really giving electric shocks and that they were not really distressed, just pretending in order to please the experimenter (demand characteristics). This would question the internal validity of the research because Milgram is measuring how the participants play along with the requests, rather than measuring the effects of situational variables on obedience directly. However, Milgram disputed these claims, providing evidence from debriefing sessions (of participants admitted they had believed they were giving shocks) and through film evidence where participants appeared in considerable distress when delivering the shocks.
Why is there a low eco and popu validity?
The ecological validity is low because they were highly controlled lab experiments. Baumrind suggested that it was not possible to generalise these findings to ‘real life’, because the study was carried out at Yale University (US Ivy League University) and the only conclusion can be about obedience to a researcher in a laboratory
population validity was low, because the study used paid male volunteers, and in Psychology it is known that volunteers are not representative of the population e.g. usually volunteers are more helpful than non volunteers. In addition another problem are the gender differences between how males respond to authority and how females respond. E.g. generally women would have been expected to be more obedient in the 1960/ women are more ‘nurturing’ therefore may be less obedient. This suggests that Milgram’s research into the situational variables affecting obedience lacks both Ecological and population validity and caution needs to be taken when generalising obedience findings.
Hofling research to support milgrams research?
Hofling et al (1996) suggests that obedience is observable in settings other than laboratories and so studied obedience in the real life setting of a hospital. Nurses were telephoned by a fictitious doctor to give a higher dose of a potentially dangerous drug to a patient, if they obeyed the order they would be breaking hospital rules. Despite this, 95% of nurses (21 out of 22) followed this order. Hofling’s research demonstrates the demands of an authority figure are just as powerful regardless of whether the setting is artificial or occurring in a more natural setting such as a hospital. However, the nurses were less obedient when they could discuss their actions with other nurses or when the drug was well known – only 11% of nurses obeyed in these circumstances, showing that other situational variables influence obedience levels.
Why is reliability a strength of milgrams research ?
has been repeated numerous times since it was first completed, yielding very high levels of obedience, like the original study. One example of this was the French television show ‘Le Jeu de la Mort’ (translated: The Game of Death) the participants believed they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new game show – they were asked to give electric shocks to other contestants (who were actually actors) when ordered by the presenter, in front of a studio audience. 80% of participants delivered the maximum shock of 460volts to an apparently unconscious man – they showed a lot of the same behaviours as those in Milgram’s study, nail biting and other signs of anxiety. This supports the original findings and conclusions, and shows that it was not a one-off occurrence - meaning the study has good reliability.
How were the participants deceived in milgrams research?
Milgram deceived his participants by telling them that they were involved in a study of the effects of punishment on learning. By using deception, he effectively denied the participants the right to informed consent. However, Milgram argued that deception was necessary because if participants had known the true aim of the study, they would have changed their behaviour (demand characteristics) and the findings would have been meaningless (low internal validity). In order to deal with the ethical issue of deception, Milgram debriefed participants, reassuring them that their behaviour had been normal, and answered their questions. In research like Milgram’s a debrief can be used to justify the deception involved.
Why was the right to withdraw unclear ?
Participants were told at the start of the study that they could withdraw at any point if they wanted to, and that they could keep the money they had been given if they decided to leave. However, during the study if they expressed a desire to leave verbal prods were given like “please continue”, which made it very difficult for some participants who felt they had no choice about continuing. This means that their right to withdraw is unclear, which is ethically unacceptable.
