Situation Variables Affecting Obedience Content Flashcards
What is obedience?
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
How did Milgram recruit participants for his study?
Through newspaper ads and flyers in the post:
. Offered $4.50 to take part and would have their travel costs paid for
What did the ad deceptively call Milgram’s study?
A study about memory
How many people were recruited for Milgram’s study and what can be said about this?
40 male only participants, aged between 20 and 50 years, with jobs ranging from unskilled to professional
How was Milgram’s study rigged from the start?
The draw for their role always selected ‘Mr Wallace’ as the ‘learner’ (person being shocked). He was a confederate
What role were the true participants assigned to in Milgram’s study?
The ‘teacher’
Who was the ‘experimenter’ in Milgram’s study?
An actor in a white lab coat (another confederate)
How were participants in Milgram’s study given the right to withdraw?
They were told they could leave the study at any time
What was the procedure in Milgram’s baseline study?
. 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
What were the range of shock levels in Milgram’s baseline study?
15 to 450 volts
How did the learners react to different shock levels (same every time)?
300V - learner pounded on wall, saying ‘get me out of here’ and didn’t respond to any further shocks, as if he was dead
What was the experimenters standardised instructions when the teacher looked to him for guidance?
‘An absence of response should be treated as a wrong answer’
What were the four standard ‘prods’ repeated if necessary in Milgram’s baseline study?
- ‘Please continue’
- ‘The experiment requires that you continue’
- ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue’
- ‘You have no other choice, you must go on.’
What were the findings on obedience levels in Milgram’s baseline study?
. No participants stoped below 300V
. 12.5% stopped at 300V
. 65% continued to the highest 450V
What data apart from obedience levels were collected from Milgram’s baseline study?
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’
How do we know the findings of Milgram’s baseline study weren’t expected?
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
What were the results of the follow-up questionnaire to Milgram’s baseline study?
84% said they felt glad to have participated
How was Milgram’s study quite ethical after it finished?
The participants were debriefed, ensuring their behaviour was back to normal
Why did Milgram decide to do his study on obedience?
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?
What is a situational variable?
The environment that appears to affect the results/behaviour in a study
What was the baseline obedience figure from original Milgram study?
65%
What was the first proximity variation of Milgram’s study and results?
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
What was the second proximity variation in Milgram’s variations and what were the results?
. Teacher forced learner’s hand onto an ‘electroshock plate’ when they refused to answer a question
- obedience rate dropped to 30%
What was the final proximity variation (most important) of Milgram’s variations and what were the results?
. 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
