Socialš ā¢ Burger's Study (2009) Flashcards
What was the aim of Burgerās study?
- Jerry Burger wanted to identify whether stanley milgramās findings were era bound/ suffured from temporal bias (historical)
- He also wanted to identify whether gender/personality traits e.g. empathetic concern will affect levels of obedience
What was the sample for the study?
- 70 adults
- 29 men and 41 women
- aged 20-81
- 60% had university degrees
- 55% caucasian
- 4% black (afro-american)
How was the sample obtained?
The distribution of flyers in varied locations such as farmers markets, online advertisements, newspaper advertisements, coffee shops or community centres
What is the proceedure of the study?
The study is essentially identical to milgramās original study BUT:
* burger employed 6 ethical safeguards to protect partidcipants alongside:
* to avoid high anxiety stopping shocks at 150V - using data to predict how many participants would have contiuned past that point
* two step screening process to exclude volunteers who may have negative reaction to experiment
* participants given reminders, twice in writing, about their right to withdraw at any given moment (prods still used)
* real but mild shock of 15V at the start to help with illusion
* participants debriefed almost immediatley after the study
* clinical psychologist supervised trials and was told to end trial immediadtley if any participants seemed distressed
* inclusuion of self-report questionares
Why did burger stop shocks at 150V?
- to aviod uneccesary distress/ axiety
- argued that 79% of participants in milgramās study that administered 150V contiunted all the way up to 450V
- Using this data he said he could predict how many participants would have contiuned up to the 450V
- Therefore not needing to subject all participants to distress, keeping experiment much more ethically safe
How many volts did milgramās original study shock the participant at start of experiment to aid illusion that shock generator was real?
- in milgramās study a 45V shock was given to participant
- Wheras in burgerās only a 15V shock was given
- MUCH LESS - ETHICALLY SAFE ALONGSIDE PHSYICALLY - reducing distress/ physical harm
What were the self-report questionnares used to measure?
- Empathetic concern - tendency to experience feelings of sympathy/ compassion for others
- Desire for personal control - how motivated a person is to see themselves in control of the events in their own lives
What did burger make sure happend to each participant after the experiment ended/ was terminated?
- they were debriefed of true nature of experiment almost immediatley
- they met the actor who played the learner, prooving nobody was harmed
- were told that shocks were not real
On what accords was the experiment terminated & what did researchers do if ended before 150V?
- terminated if participant refused to continue after hearing all 4 prods (almost identical to milgrams)
- terminated if participant had administered full 150V shock
- If ended early then researched recorded the final shock level administered before termination
Where was the actual study held?
Was a laboritory experiment (therefore lacking ecological validity)
What loaction was the study conducted at?
Santa Clara University (in laboratory) therfore AMERICA
What were the results of burgerās study?
- obedience levels were only slightly lower than milgramās:
- 70% pressed 150V in burger
- **82.5% **pressued 150V in milgram
- Men and women didnt show a large enough difference to have any prominance (males: 66.7% women: 72.7%)
What were the results of the self-report questionnares in relation to the obedient and disobedient participants?
- Empathetic concern: No significant difference between scores in obedient (19.20) and disobedient (19.25) participants, infering empathetic concern doesnt impact obedience levels
- Desire for personal control: Contrastingly, there was a difference in scores in obedient (98.24) and disobedient (106.62) participants, infering the desire for personal control does impact obedience levels with defiant participants having an increased desire for personal control
What did burger conclude from his study?
- That milgramās experiment was neither era bound or androcentric (gender bais towards males)
- That empathy is not a valid reason for increased or decreased levels of obedience
- That the desire for personal control (DFPC) can appear to determine the liklihood of defiance e.g. higher DFPC = higher chances of disobedience
What is the Generalisability of Burgerās study?
Sample is not representative of target/wider popualtion (lacking population valdidity)
* although the pre-experiment screening was a brilliant ethical factor in the study, it left 38% of volunteers removed - producing a final sample of people with an increased psychological strength, consequently therefore not represenatative of a wider population which would include a varied level of psychological strength from low-high (low were removed in screening to reduce negative reaction to experiment to prevent ethics psychologica harm)
What is the Reliability of Burgerās study?
- Milgramās original was reliable as it could be repeated many times
- burger replicated aspects of variations #5 and #8 (empathy & female)
- Burger harnessed advantages of 21st century and filmed the entire procedure, adding to the inter-rater reliability as others can view/ judge obedience levels themselves
What is the Application of Burgerās study?
- Can be applied to obedience levels in the real world to authority & methods of increasing obedience in schools, workplaces or prisons
- As participants were stopped at 150V no tension was generated, leaving the situation/ experiment bereft of any potency (power/force/meaning) + convorstations in milgrams studies from 150V -> 450V gave the most interesting behavioural results between teacher/ confedorate - as burger skipped this and stopped at 150V, no information could be collected from this time in experiment as it didnt exist - reduces meaningfullness of study to help understand real world obedience as social interaction in high-pressure situatuions can catalyse new/ more/less obedient behaviour
What is the Validity of Burgerās study?
- Lacks ecological validiy as it was an artificial environment
- Included strong internal validiy as burger made sure none of his participants had prior knowledge of milgrams study or took any psychology classes - therefore also decreasing chances of demand characteristics (changing responses to fine tune them to appeal to aim of experiment - reduces validity if occur as response from people not true)
What were the Ethics of Burgerās study?
- increased ethical measures compared to milgram due to time period/ society being safer and more considerate
- screened out participants likely to be distressed, experimenter was trained clinical psychologist so any stress/ concern experiment was terminated
- 45V shock to teacher down to 15V
- Not ethical as it suffered from deception by concealing true element of experiment and lying about shocks being real - although debreif after - regardless of other measures and debrief experiment would have been distressing
- Improved (from milgrams) reminders of right to withdraw although prods and pressure to continue still remained
How did Burgers study include culture bais dispite efforts for increased variation? (+ generalisibility issues)
- Although more diverse sample than milgram, that was ethically diverse, sample still was collected in the same region - America
- This infers almost all participants would have been part of the same western culture (american)
- Ultimately infering that results of experiment are not able to be generalised to other cultures that are not american/westernised as the sample was not representative of a wider, more culturally diverse population
