Social Appraoch - MILGRAM

Question 0

What was the IV?

Answer 0

There was no IV

Question 1

Hypotheses and Aims of the study.

Answer 1

• to see whether an average American would harm under authority figure.
• to investigate what level of obedience would be shown when subjects were told by authority to administer electric shocks to another person.

Question 2

What were the DVs ?

Answer 2

• obedience of the teacher when administering electric shocks to the learner.
• the voltage that the teacher was willing to administer (go up to)

Question 3

Who were the participants?

Answer 3

• 40 men
• white
• variety of occupations
• between ages of 20 and 50
• recruited by newspaper article (volunteers)

Question 4

What year did the experiment take place in?

Where did it take place?

Answer 4

1963

Yale university

Question 5

How was the data collected and what type of data was it?

Answer 5

Observation was used to collect data, and both quantitative and qualitative data was observed.

• maximum voltage of shock administered
• recordings of sessions
• occasional pictures
• observation notes

Question 6

What did the set up of the experiment look like?

Answer 6

Teacher (participant) was sitting in a room with a observer. In another room was the learner (stooge) acting as the person being electrocuted.

Question 7

What did the allocation of roles involve?

Answer 7

The participant was to draw a role out of the hat first, both pieces of paper said ‘teacher’ on it, the stooge then pretended that he picked ‘learner’.

Participants thought this was a random allocation of roles yet it wasn’t.

Question 8

What did the experiment involve?

Answer 8

Teacher was asked to read out a list of words, if the learner didn’t say the correct word in the correct order an electric shock was applied.

Question 9

What was the maximum voltage available?

Answer 9

450V

Question 10

How did the experimenter ensure the participant thought the shocks were real?

Answer 10

Participant was shocked lightly at the beginning of the experiment

Question 11

When did the teacher hear from the stooge?

Answer 11

Response came after 300V

• scream and noise like a person collapsing
• no answers after that

Question 12

Who was the observer?

Answer 12

31 years old biology teacher.

Question 13

Prods which were used by the observer to ensure shocks were administered.

Answer 13

Standardised prods:

• please continue/go on
• the experiment requires that you continue
• it’s absolutely essential that you continue
• you have no other choice, you must go on
• although the shocks may be painful, there’s no permanent tissue damage, so please go on
• whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on

Question 14

What were the Results and Conclusions ?

Answer 14

• most participants reached 300V

- 65% of participants reached the maximum 450V

Question 15

What were the results of the debrief?

Answer 15

92% response rate to the debriefing

84% positive, 2% negative, 6% struggled to form an opinion.

Question 16

What type of experiment was this?

Answer 16

Quasi under lab conditions

Question 17

Evaluations:

Answer 17

• no IV = low reliability (extraneous variables)
• Milgram never expected such radical results
• power of obedience overweight their personal moral beliefs that it was wrong to hurt others.
• prestigious university might have influenced subjects as to worthiness of the study

Question 18

Ethical problems :

Answer 18

• participants had the right to withdraw, but we’re very strongly encouraged to carry on
• no one was dramatically physically hurt, yet there was possible psychological damage
• subjects didn’t make a informed consent to take part - deception used
• some debriefed a year later

Question 19

Milgram’s overall final conclusion:

Answer 19

Humans are innately obedient

Question 20

What could be improved about this experiment?

Answer 20

1) include woman - greater external validity
2) different age groups - greater external validity
3) increase the proximity (closeness) to the learner e.g sit in the same room