situational factors affecting obedience

Question 1

what are the situational factors affecting obedience

Answer 1

1) proximity
2) location
3) power of uniform

Question 2

outline a study into obedience

Answer 2

MIGRAMS STUDY

• 40 pps were told the study was for punishment and learning
• 2 experimental confederates who, when choosing who was learner and teacher, would always draw the learner card
• teacher asked to test learner on ability to remember word list, each time the learner got it wrong they would receive a shock increasing in intensity form 15v-450v
• the learner was in a separate room
• the learner would stop providing responses after 300v
• if teacher wanted to stop the experimenter would provide prompts to continue

Question 3

outline the findings of the study into obedience

Answer 3

1) all teachers went to 300v
2) 65% went all the way to 450v
3) only 5 participants stopped at 300v

Question 4

outline how proximity is a situational factor to obedience and how it was investigated

Answer 4

1) a variation to mailgrams study were teacher and learner were in the same room
2) obedience levels fell form 65% to 40%
3) when teacher was in touch proximity to learner fell from 65% to 30%
4) if the experimenter was absent from the room obedience fell to only 21%

Question 5

outline how location in a situational factor affecting obedience and how it is investigated

Answer 5

1) variation in Milgram’s study were it was conducted in a run down office in Bridgeport instead of Yale university
2) obedience dropped form 65% to 48%
3) participants stated that obedience was higher at Yale as the integrity of the experimenters gave the confidence

Question 6

outline how the power of uniform acts as a situational factor affecting obedience

Answer 6

1) Milgram variation where the experimenter was replaced with individuals wearing casual clothes who came up with the idea of increasing the voltage each time a mistake was made
2) obedience dropped from 65% to 20%

Question 7

evaluate situational factors into obedience

Answer 7

1) research support for the power of uniform= demonstrated that young children’s understanding of authority was dominated by visual cues. Various scenarios were used where the children had to identify who was able to make the arrested, a policeman who changed into civilian clothes, a civilian dressed in a police uniform, and a man in a different uniform. children mostly selected man in police uniform which suggest that initial perceptions of authority are dominated by superficial appearances which are more accessible than social staus
2) historical validity- Milgram’s study was conducted over 50 years ago so has been criticized for lacking historical validity, however, statistical analysis between 1961 and 1985 found that there were little relationships between later studies finding more or less obedience than earlier studies. This suggests that Milgram’s findings still apply as much today as they did in the early 1960s
3) lack of realism- research claimed that PPS learned to distrust experimenters as they know the true purpose of the study may have been disguised they discovered many of migrams pps had been skeptical about if shocks were real. splitting the ps into disbelievers and believers they found believers were more likely to disobey therefore challenging internal validity