Social Influence L6 - Obediance To Authority - Milgram Flashcards
What’s obedience
Obedience is a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming
Milgram’s aim
To investigate the level of obedience participants would show when an authority figure tells them to administer electric shocks to another human being.
To test the ‘Germans are different’ hypothesis and prove that the Holocaust was due to the dispositional factors of the soldiers
How were participants chosen
Milgram selected participants by advertising for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale University
This is known as a volunteer sampling method
There were 40 male participants in all that took part in his original study
They were paid $4 per hour and told that the study was based on memory and learning
Milgram’s procedure (set up)
participant was paired with another person and they drew lots to find out who would be the ‘learner’ and who would be the ‘teacher’
draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher, and the learner was the confederate Mr Wallace - he was taken into a room and had electrodes attached to his arms – the teacher (the real pp) saw this happening
Mr Wallace was asked if he had any medical conditions and he said ‘minor heart condition’
the teacher and researcher went into a room next door that contained an electric shock generator and a row of switches marked from 15 volts (Slight Shock) to 375 volts (Danger: Severe Shock) to 450 volts (XXX) - didn’t know it was false
Milgram’s procedure (carry out)
- participant was told to read out pairs of words that the learner had to remember
- If they got one wrong or said nothing at all, then the participant had to give them an electric shock, and had to increase the voltage each time
- At 180 volts the learner shouted that he could not stand the pain, at 300 volts he begged to be released, and after 315 volts there was silence.
- If participant asked advice from the experimenter, whether it be; ‘should I continue administering shocks’, or some other indication that he did not wish to go on, he would be given encouragement to continue with a sequence of standardised ‘prods’:
What were the prods
Prod 1: ‘Please continue’ or ‘Please go on’;
Prod 2: ‘The experiment requires that you continue’;
Prod 3: ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue’;
Prod 4: ‘You have no other choice, you must go on’.
The prods were always made in sequence. Only if Prod 1 was unsuccessful could Prod 2 be used, etc. If the participant continued to disobey after Prod 4, the experiment was terminated. The experimenter’s tone of voice was always firm, but not impolite.
Prediction of results
- Milgram had predicted before the study that 2% of people would shock to the highest level, but most people would quit very early on
- In fact, prior to the study Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants’ behaviour
-The students estimated that no more than 3% would continue to 450 volts.
Milgram’s result
- all participants shocked up to 300 volts and 65% of participants shocked all the way up to 450 volts.
- All 40 of the participants obeyed up to 300 volts at which point 5 refused to continue
- Four more gave one further shock before refusing; two broke off at the 330 volts level and one each at 345, 360 and 375 volts.
- a total of 14 participants defied the experimenter, and 26 obeyed.
- Overall, 65% of the participants gave shocks up to 450 volts (obeyed) and 35% stopped sometime before 450 volts.
What was shown in the experiment
During the study many participants showed signs of nervousness and tension.
Participants sweated, trembled, stuttered, bit their lips, groaned, dug fingernails into their flesh, and these were typical not exceptional responses.
Quite a common sign of tension was nervous laughing fits (14 out of 40 participants), which seemed entirely out of place, even bizarre.
Full-blown uncontrollable seizures were observed for three participants. On one occasion, a participant had such a violently convulsive seizure that the experiment had to be halted; the 46-year-old encyclopaedia salesman was extremely embarrassed. Participants took pains to point out that they were not sadistic types, and that the laughter did not mean they enjoyed shocking the learner.
What happened after the experiment
all participants were debriefed at the end of the study and assured that their behaviour was entirely normal. All participants were sent a follow-up questionnaire, 84% reported that they felt glad to have participated
Conclusion
normal ordinary people will obey authority even if their actions may be detrimental. Thus the hypothesis that the ‘Germans are different’ was not supported
As Americans also obeyed
Evaluation of Milgram’s study (x2 each)
strengths
Good external validity
Supporting replication
weaknesses
Low internal validity
Ethical issues
Good external validity
- study appears to lack external validity at first glance because it was carried out in a lab, it still shows the relationship between the authority figure (in this case the experimenter) and the participant.
- Milgram argued lab environment accurately reflected real life authority
His research is also supported by Hofling et al.’s (1966) study where 21/22 nurses were willing to exceed the maximum dose of a drug followed by Dr Smith’s orders over the phone. Despite the nurses not knowing if Dr Smith was genuine
Hofling et al (1966) – Obedient nurses
- 22 nurses working a various American hospitals received telephone calls from a confederate “Dr Smith of the Psychiatric Department”, instructing them to give Mr Jones (Dr Smith’s patient) 20mg of a made up drug called Astrofen
- Dr Smith said he was in a desperate hurry and would sign the drug authorisation form when he came to see the patient in 10 minutes time.
- The label on the box containing the Astrofen clearly stated that the maximum dose was 10mg. So if the nurse obeyed Dr Smith’s instruction she would be exceeding the maximum daily dose. She would also be breaking the rules requiring written authorisation before any drug is given and that a nurse be absolutely sure that “Dr Smith” is a genuine doctor.
- In reply to questionnaires, most nurses said they would not obey such an order. In reality, 21 out of the 22 nurses that received a call from “Dr Smith” complied without hesitation and 11 later said that they had not noticed the dosage discrepancy.
Counter against Hofling et al (1966) – Obedient nurses
Rank and Jacobson (1977) queried the facts that the nurses had no knowledge of the drug involved and that they had no opportunity to seek advice from anyone of equal or higher status. (Both of which would apply in most hospital situations.)
They replicated Hofling’s experiment but the instruction was to administer Valium at 3 times the recommended level, the telephoned instruction came from a real, known doctor on the hospital staff and the nurses were able to consult with other nurses before proceeding. Under these conditions, only 2 out of 18 nurses prepared the medication as requested
