Situational Variables Affecting Obedience

Question 1

What is obedience?

Answer 1

A form of obedience of social influence 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 (1963) 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

• He selected 40 participants by advertising for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale University, participants would be paid $4.50 even if they left early.
• There were 2 confederates, an experimenter and another volunteer participant. The 2 participants 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 learner was taken to a room and had electrodes attached to his arms, and the teacher and researcher went to the room that had an electric shock generator and a row of switches marked from 15V (slight shock) to 375V (Danger: Severe Shock) and 450V (XXX)
• The teacher had to test the learner on remembering word pairs. Every time he got one wrong or nothing was said, then the teacher had to give them a shock had increase 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 experiment had ‘prods’ to repeat, like ‘it is absolutely essential that continue.’

Question 3

Describe the findings of the Milgram study

Answer 3

• Before, Milgram asked psychiatrists, college students and colleagues to predict how long participants would go before reusing to continue. They predicted that very few would go beyond 150 volts and only 1 in 1,000 would go up to 450 volts
• However 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 4

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

Answer 4

• There has been real world application of Milgram’s study.
• La Jeu de la Mort is a documentary about reality TV, presented on French TV in 2010. It includes a replication of Milgram’s where participants believed they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new game show called La Zone Xtreme. They were paid to give (fake) shocks, when ordered by the presenter, to others who were actors, in a front of a studio audience
• Confirming Milgram’s results, 80% of the participants delivered the maximum shock of 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man. Their behaviour was near identical to that of Milgram’s study, nervous laughter, nail biting and other signs of anxiety. This replication supports Milgram’s conclusions about obedience to authority and demonstrates that his findings were not just a one-off chance occurrence.

Question 5

Give evaluation for Milgram’s study (external validity)

Answer 5

• 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 (1966) 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 something valuable to tell us about how obedience operates in real life

Question 6

Describe proximity as a situational factor in obedience

Answer 6

• In the proximity variation, both teacher and learner were in the same room. Obedience rates dropped from 65% 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 telephone, proximity was reduced. Obedience reduced to 20.5%

Question 7

Describe location as a situation factor in obedience

Answer 7

• 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 Bridgeport, Connecticut, with no links to Yale. Obedience dropped to 48% giving the maximum shock.

Question 8

Describe uniform as a situational factor in obedience

Answer 8

• Uniform is easily recognisable and convey power and authority, which can become symbolised in the uniform itself
• In the baseline study, experimenter had a lab coat that acted as a symbol of authority
• Milgram carried out another variation where the experimenter had to leave due to a phone call. Someone wearing ordinary clothes (confederate) rather than a lab coat. Obedience dropped to 20% which was the lowest of all variations.
• Bickman et al (1974) 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 than the one in a jacket and the tie. 76% with the guard, 47% with the milkman, 30% with the pedestrian.

Question 9

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

Answer 9

• Mandel (1998) claims that Milgram’s conclusions about the situation variables of obedience aren’t borne out by real-life events
• In 1942, the 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. He concluded ‘obedience’ masks the real reason (antisemitism) behind such behaviours

Question 10

Give evaluation for situational variables affecting obedience (validity)

Answer 10

• Orne and Holland (1968) claimed that participants in psychological studies have learned to distrust experimenters as true aims may be disguised.
• Perry (2012) discovered Milgram’s participants were skeptical about if the shocks were real. Taketo and Murata, Milgram’s research assistant, divided participants into ‘doubters’ and ‘believers’. He found the latter group were more likely to disobey and give low intensity shocks.
• Findings challenge 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