Situation Variables Affecting Obedience Content

Question 1

What is obedience?

Answer 1

A type of social influence where somebody acts in response to a direct order from a figure with perceived authority. The person receiving the order is often made to respond in a way they wouldn’t usually if they weren’t given this order

Question 2

How did Milgram recruit participants for his study?

Answer 2

Through newspaper ads and flyers in the post:
. Offered $4.50 to take part and would have their travel costs paid for

Question 3

What did the ad deceptively call Milgram’s study?

Answer 3

A study about memory

Question 4

How many people were recruited for Milgram’s study and what can be said about this?

Answer 4

40 male only participants, aged between 20 and 50 years, with jobs ranging from unskilled to professional

Question 5

How was Milgram’s study rigged from the start?

Answer 5

The draw for their role always selected ‘Mr Wallace’ as the ‘learner’ (person being shocked). He was a confederate

Question 6

What role were the true participants assigned to in Milgram’s study?

Answer 6

The ‘teacher’

Question 7

Who was the ‘experimenter’ in Milgram’s study?

Answer 7

An actor in a white lab coat (another confederate)

Question 8

How were participants in Milgram’s study given the right to withdraw?

Answer 8

They were told they could leave the study at any time

Question 9

What was the procedure in Milgram’s baseline study?

Answer 9

. Learner strapped into chair in another room and wired with electrodes
. The learner had to performance tasks involving learning word pairs
. The experimenter required the teacher to give an increasingly severe shock on every wrong answer
. The shocks were demonstrated to the teacher to prove it ‘safe’ and were not real from that point onwards

Question 10

What were the range of shock levels in Milgram’s baseline study?

Answer 10

15 to 450 volts

Question 11

How did the learners react to different shock levels (same every time)?

Answer 11

300V - learner pounded on wall, saying ‘get me out of here’ and didn’t respond to any further shocks, as if he was dead

Question 12

What was the experimenters standardised instructions when the teacher looked to him for guidance?

Answer 12

‘An absence of response should be treated as a wrong answer’

Question 13

What were the four standard ‘prods’ repeated if necessary in Milgram’s baseline study?

Answer 13

1. ‘Please continue’
2. ‘The experiment requires that you continue’
3. ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue’
4. ‘You have no other choice, you must go on.’

Question 14

What were the findings on obedience levels in Milgram’s baseline study?

Answer 14

. No participants stoped below 300V
. 12.5% stopped at 300V
. 65% continued to the highest 450V

Question 15

What data apart from obedience levels were collected from Milgram’s baseline study?

Answer 15

Qualitative data on observations on how the participants showed extreme signs of tension:
. Sweating
. Biting lips
. Nervous laughter
. Stuttering

Three participants had ‘full-blown uncontrollable seizures’

Question 16

How do we know the findings of Milgram’s baseline study weren’t expected?

Answer 16

Before the experiment, Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the behaviour of the participants
- the students estimated no more than 3% would go to the full 450V

Question 17

What were the results of the follow-up questionnaire to Milgram’s baseline study?

Answer 17

84% said they felt glad to have participated

Question 18

How was Milgram’s study quite ethical after it finished?

Answer 18

The participants were debriefed, ensuring their behaviour was back to normal

Question 19

Why did Milgram decide to do his study on obedience?

Answer 19

He wanted to know why the German population followed the orders of Hitler in the holocaust
- were Germans different?
- were some Germans naturally more obedient than others?

Question 20

What is a situational variable?

Answer 20

The environment that appears to affect the results/behaviour in a study

Question 21

What was the baseline obedience figure from original Milgram study?

Answer 21

65%

Question 22

What was the first proximity variation of Milgram’s study and results?

Answer 22

Teacher and learner in same room
- obedience rate drops to 40% as the teacher could see the reactions aren’t genuine, so can take responsibility to not continue

Question 23

What was the second proximity variation in Milgram’s variations and what were the results?

Answer 23

. Teacher forced learner’s hand onto an ‘electroshock plate’ when they refused to answer a question
- obedience rate dropped to 30%

Question 24

What was the final proximity variation (most important) of Milgram’s variations and what were the results?

Answer 24

. Experimenter leaves room and instructions given over a phone call, so the proximity between the experimenter and teacher is further
- obedience rate drops to 21%
- teachers tended to give lower voltage shocks and pretended to give shocks

Question 25

What conclusion can be drawn from the proximity variations of Milgram’s study?

Answer 25

For obedience to occur, the person giving the orders has to be physically present to for the highest obedience levels e.g an example of this is when you are set cover work, you may not actually do it as the teacher isn’t present

Question 26

What was the location variation in Milgram’s variations and results?

Answer 26

. Location changed to a run-down abandoned building in Connecticut
- equipment set up in the basement of the building

Finding: obedience drops to 48%
- however, this isn’t a massive drop, showing the location of the study isn’t actually an extremely important factor in obedience levels

Question 27

What was the uniform variation in Milgram’s variation and what were the results?

Answer 27

Experimenter called for a phone call and an ‘ordinary member of the public’ comes in as a new experimenter (also a confederate)
- wears casual clothes
- obedience drops to 20% (lowest rate)

Question 28

What was the aim of Bickman (1974)?

Answer 28

Investigate whether obedience was affected by the uniform worn

Question 29

What kind of experiment was Bickman’s study and how many participants?

Answer 29

153 random participants in New York (field experiment)

Question 30

What 3 ways were the experimenters dressed in Bickman’s study?

Answer 30

. Security guard
. Milkman
. Ordinary clothes

Question 31

What did the experimenters ask the public in Bickman’s study?

Answer 31

One of these instructions:
. ‘Pick up this bag for me’
. ‘The sign says no standing.’

Question 32

What were the results of Bickman’s study and what conclusion can be drawn?

Answer 32

. Security guard: 76% obedience
. Ordinary clothes: 30% obedience
. Milkman: 47% obedience

Conclusion: in real life, obedience occurs in response to a uniform that reflects a legitimate authority