Situational Variables Affecting Obedience

Question 1

What is obedience?

Answer 1

A form of social influence is obedience where an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedience isn’t forthcoming

Question 2

What was the aim of Milgram’s study?

Answer 2

Milgram wanted to investigate if Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in WW2

Question 3

Describe the procedure of Milgram’s study

Answer 3

• The participant was paired with a confederate and they drew lots to see who would act as the ‘teacher’ and ‘learner’, but it was rigged so that the real participant would be the teacher.
• The teacher and researcher went to the room with an electric shock generator and a row of switches.
• The teacher tested the learner on word pairs. When he got one wrong or nothing was said, the teacher gave them a shock and increased the voltage each time.
• At 180 volts, the learner shouted he couldn’t stand the pain, at 300 he begged to leave and at 315 volts there was silence.
• If the teacher asked to stop, the researcher had ‘prods’ to repeat, like ‘it is absolutely essential that you continue.’

Question 4

Describe the findings of the Milgram study

Answer 4

65% continued to the maximum shock level, 450 volts. All participants went to 300 volts and with only 5 stopping there, the point where the learner first objected

Question 5

Give evaluation for Milgram’s study (real world application)

Answer 5

• There has been real world application of Milgram’s study.
• La Jeu de la Mort is a documentary about reality TV, it includes a replication of Milgram’s study where participants believed they were in a new game show. They were paid to give (fake) shocks, when ordered by the presenter, to others who were actors.
• Confirming Milgram’s results, 80% of the participants delivered the maximum shock to an ‘unconscious’ man. Their behaviour was similar to that of Milgram’s study, nervous laughter, nail biting and other signs of anxiety.
• This replication supports Milgram’s conclusions about obedience and demonstrates that his findings were not just a one-off chance occurrence.

Question 6

Give evaluation for Milgram’s study (external validity)

Answer 6

• Milgram’s study may appear to lack external validity as it was in a lab. However, the central feature was the relationship between the authority figure and the participants in real life.
• Hofling et al’s research supports this as they studied nurses in a hospital ward and found levels of obedience to unjustified demands by doctors were high (21 out of 22 nurses obeying)
• Suggests the processes of obedience to authority that occurred in Milgram’s lab can be generalised to other situations. So his findings do have some value to tell us about how obedience operates in real life

Question 7

Describe proximity as a situational factor in obedience

Answer 7

• In the proximity variation, both teacher and learner were in the same room. Obedience rates dropped to 40% as the teacher could experience the learner’s anguish more directly
• In the touch proximity condition, the teacher had to force the learner’s hand onto a shock plate. Obedience dropped to 30%
• In the experimenter absent condition, the experimenter gave instructions over the phone, proximity was reduced. Obedience reduced to 20.5%

Question 8

Describe location as a situation factor in obedience

Answer 8

• At Yale University, the location gave them confidence in the integrity of the people involved.
• Milgram moved his study to a run-down office in Connecticut, with no links to Yale. Obedience dropped to 48% giving the maximum shock.

Question 9

Describe uniform as a situational factor in obedience

Answer 9

• In the baseline study, experimenter had a lab coat that acted as a symbol of authority
• Milgram had a variation where the experimenter had to leave due to a phone call and someone wearing ordinary clothes (confederate) entered. Obedience dropped to 20% which was the lowest of all variations.

Question 10

Give support for uniform as a situational factor in obedience

Answer 10

• Bickman et al had 3 confederates dressed as a milkman, security guard and pedestrian. They asked people walking by to pick up litter.
• People were twice as likely to obey the guard (76%) than the pedestrian (30%).

Question 11

Give evaluation for situational variables effecting obedience (Reserve Police Battalion)

Answer 11

• Mandel claims that Milgram’s conclusions about the situation variables of obedience aren’t borne out by real-life events
• e.g. Men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 received orders to kill Jews. The commanding officer, made an offer to his men who ‘didn’t feel up to’ it, that they could be given other tasks. Despite close physical proximity to their victims and disobedient peers present they still obeyed.
• He concluded ‘obedience’ masks the real reason (antisemitism) behind such behaviours

Question 12

Give evaluation for situational variables affecting obedience (validity)

Answer 12

• It’s claimed that participants in psychological studies have learned to distrust experimenters as true aims may be disguised.
• e.g Perry discovered Milgram’s participants were skeptical about if the shocks were real. Milgram’s research assistants divided participants into ‘doubters’ and ‘believers’ and the latter group were more likely to disobey and give low intensity shocks.
• This challenges the validity of Milgram’s study and suggests that when faced with the reality of destructive obedience, people are more likely to disobey an authority figure