Social Approach 1 - Milgram Flashcards
When was Milgram?
1963
What was Milgram’s aim?
To investigate how obedient individuals would be to orders received from a person in authority
What was Milgram’s study a reaction to?
Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials saying they were ‘just following orders’.
How many of Milgram’s students and colleagues believed they would administer the maximum voltage shock?
3%
What religion was Stanley Milgram?
Jewish
What was the dispositional argument for the Holocaust?
Germans possessed some defective personality trait that made such extreme levels of obedience possible.
What was the situational argument for the Holocaust?
Many people who found themselves in a similar situation would harm or even kill other human beings under the orders of an authority figure.
What sort of observation was it?
Controlled observation
What type of experiment was it?
Lab study
What was obedience operationalised to?
Maximum voltage given in response to orders.
Other than voltage, what other things did the observers note?
Body language, verbal comments, or protests.
What sort of data was collected?
Both qualitative and quantitative data.
Where was the study done?
Yale University, New Haven, USA
Was deception used?
Yes, they thought it was a memory test.
How big was the sample?
40 men.
What was the age range of the sample?
20-50
What sampling method was used?
Volunteer sampling
What were the participants paid?
$4.50
What sort of environment was the study done in and why?
A modern lab at Yale to give it legitimacy which is an important situational factor in obedience.
How did the participants arrive?
Individually
What was the stooge?
An actor who the participants believed too be another participant. He was a likeable middle-aged man who was always assigned to be the learner.
How were the roles assigned?
They were drawn out of a hat, but the results were fixed so that the real participant was always the teacher.
What was the range of shocks on the shock generator?
15V - 450V
What was the participant shown in the other room?
The stooge strapped to a chair with electrodes attached by the experimenter (they weren’t real).
What were some descriptions of the voltages?
Moderate shock
Danger: severe shock
XXX
What were the participant told about the shocks and how was it proved?
That they were painful but not dangerous. They got an example shock of 45V.
Where was the participant put after the set up?
Behind a wall where they could see but not hear the stooge anymore.
Who was the experimenter?
A 31 year old male teacher who wore a grey technicians coat and had a stern demeanor throughout the experiment.
