Social influence Flashcards
What is obedience?
A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order.
Milgram’s study - procedure?
40 male participants recruited through adverts saying the experiment was a study about memory
A rigged draw meant that the confederate always ended up as the “learner”
Learner asked to memorise a list of word pairs and the participant (teacher) was told that he would be testing the learners recall of those words and should administer an electric shock for every wrong answer increasing the shock level each time
Shock level started at 15 (labelled ‘slight shock’) and rose through 30 levels to 450 volts (labelled ‘danger - severe shock;)
When participants hesitated to deliver the shocks. The researchers gave orders in a series prods e.g please contuinue
Milgram’s findings
No participants stopped below 300 volts
12.5% (5 participants) stopped at 300 volts (labelled ‘intense shock’)
obedience - 65%
Qualitative data through observation: participants showed signs of extreme tension - seen to ‘steat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan and dig their nails into their hands
Hofling et al
Studied nurses on a hospital ward and found levels of obedience to unjustified demands by doctors was very high with 21/22 nurses obeying which suggests Milgram’s findings can be generalised to other situations
Strength - Milgram’s research
Le Jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death)
A documentary about reality tv in France included a replication of Milgram’s study where contestants believed they were paid to give electric shock to other participants who were in fact actors.
Results= 80% of participants delivered the maximum 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man - behaviour was almost identical to that of Milgram’s research which support his conclusion and that his findings were not an one-off chance occurrence
Strength - Milgram’s research
Sheridan and King
Conducted a similar study where real shocks were administered to puppies. Despite the real shocks, 54% of male students and 100% of females delivered what they thought was a fatal shock which suggests Milgram’s study was genuine because people behaved in the same way
Strength - Milgram’s research
Orne and Holland
Predict that the participants behaved the way they did because they didn’t believe that the shocks were real so milgram wasn’t testing what he intended to measure - Low internal validity
In his variations participants worked out the truth especially the part where the experimenter is replaced by a member of the public because it appeared so contrived (made up) so participants saw through the deception
Limitation - Milgram’s research + variations
Issues and Debates - Milgram
Androcentric - lacks population validity: Milgram used a bias sample of 40 male volunteers, which means we are unable to generalise the results to females.
Limitation - Milgram’s research
Milgram’s study with proximity as a variation
baseline 65%
The experimenter left the room and gave instruction via telephone = Obedience dropped to 20.5%
Milgram’s study with location as a variation
Changed the location to a run-down building
Obedience fell to 46%
Milgram’s study with uniform as a variation
The experimenter was called away at the start and the role was taken over by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ (played by a confederate in everyday clothes
The obedience rate dropped to 20%
Bickman
Three confederates ask people to pick up litter:
1) wearing a jacket and tie
2) milkman’s outfit
3) security guard’s uniform.
People were twice as likely to obey the assistant dressed as the security guard than the one dressed in jacket and tie so supporting milgram’s conclusion that a uniform conveys the authority of its wearer and is a situational factor likely to produce obedience
Strength - Variations of Milgram
Mandel
Mandel argues that Milgram’s research offers an excuse or ‘alibi’ for evil behaviour. It is offensive to holocaust survivors to suggest that the Naxis were simply obeying orders and were victims of the holocaust to suggest that the is were simply obeying orders and were victims themselves of situational variables and that anyone faced with a similar situation would have behaved in the same way runs the risk of trivialising (justifying/normalising) genocide.
Limitation - Variations of Milgram
Agentic State
Obediance to authoiry occurs because someone does not not take responsibility instead they believe they are acting for someone else i.e they are an ‘agent’ who acts for/in place of another
An agent experiences high anxiety (‘moral strain’) when they realise what they are doing is wrong but feel powerless to disobey
Autonomous state
Opposite of being in an agentic state
Autonomy = independence
A person in an autonomous state is is free to behave according to their own principles and feels responsible for their own actions
Agentic shift
The shift from autonomy to ‘agency’: occurs when a person perceives someone else as a figure of authority who has greater power because of their position in a social hierarchy
Legitimacy of authority
This explanation suggests that people will obey someone they perceive to be ‘above’ them in the social hierarchy, and therefore think they have the right to give orders.
