Social influence - Milgram's variations

Question 1

What were Milgram’s situational variations?

Answer 1

Location, proximity and uniform - (Bickman (1974) is covered as Milgram didn’t directly investigate this)

Question 2

Where was the original study conducted? Why?

Answer 2

Yale University - very prestigious institution to give ppts. confidence in the integrity of the research as institution carried legitimate authority

Question 3

How did he conduct the location variation?

Answer 3

He replicated the study in a run-down office block - obedience fell to 48%

Question 4

What are the 2 types of proximity variation?

Answer 4

• Teacher to learner (naïve ppt. to confederate)
• Experimenter to teacher (experimenter to naïve ppt.)

Question 5

What happened in the teacher to learner variation?

Answer 5

• When teacher and learner were sat in the same room, obedience rate fell to 40% as teacher could see harm they were causing and had more moral strain
• In ‘touch proximity’ variation, teacher had to force learner’s hand onto shock plate, obedience dropped to 30%

Question 6

What happened in the experimenter to teacher variation?

Answer 6

In ‘experimenter absent’ variation, experimenter gave orders over the phone and obedience rate dropped to 20% - some ppts. ‘cheated’, giving lowest shock level rather than following procedure

Question 7

What happened in the uniform variation experiment?

Answer 7

Bickman (1974) conducted a field experiment in NYC where confederates stood on the streets asking passers-by to perform small tasks. Outfit worn varied from suit to milkman to security guard.
Ppts. twice as likely to obey security guard (76%) compared to ordinary clothes (30%)
Uniform adds to legitimacy of authority to increase obedience levels