Social Influence : Milgrams Procedure & Research Into Situational Variables Flashcards
How has Milgrams research been both praised and attacked?
For its ecological validity. Since Milgrams research required participants to follow instructions of an experimenter, delivered in a lab, it may be criticised for lacking ecological validity. As the artificial setting may have had people behave unnaturally this makes it hard to generalise Milgrams findings on explaining obedience in the real world. However, it can be argued that the laboratory experiment is what gave the experimenter their authority, as labs are a situation where experimenters naturally have authority. On the other hand, although the experiment was clearly not something a person would be routinely asked to do in real life, it could be argued that it still captured the realistic nature of many instances to destructive obedience. For example: those that occurred in Nazi Germany, where soldiers where instructed to torture prisoners by a senior office. Therefore the findings do generalize to real world situations of destructive obedience (obeying a command to harm another).
What has undermined Milgrams Procedure?
Its vulnerability to demand characteristics.One of Milgrams research assistants divided participants Into “doubters” (believed shocks were fake) and “believers” (believed shocks were real). He found the doubters were more likely to shock the learner at maximum voltage. The doubters willingness to shock the learner may be down to thinking the investigation was fake therefore guessing the aim and altering their behaviour to please the researcher. Undermining the experiments internal validity. However, there is also evidence suggesting Milgrams participants didn’t guess the aim of the experiment as they showed signs of stress, (sweat, stutter, bitting fingernails…). Stress indicates they did not doubt the experimenter therefore findings cannot be explained by demand characteristics.
Why has Milgrams Procedure been criticised?
For lacking population validity. Milgrams study took place on 40 people, all which were male, obtaining by using volunteer sampling. This could have led to a biased sample as people who volunteer may not be representative of the general population, especially considering it only experiments on one gender. Conclusively, it is not easy to generalise his conclusions on obedience.
How did Milgram manipulate the Proximity in the teacher-learner procedure? Variation 1.
The teacher and learner were in different rooms. Milgram manipulated this by placing them in the same room. Full obedience (shocking to 450 volts) declined to 40%.
How did Milgram manipulate the Proximity in the teacher-learner procedure? Variation 2.
The experimenter and teacher were in the same room. Milgram manipulated this by having the experimenter deliver instructions from another location over the phone. Obedience declined to 20.5%.
How did Milgram manipulate Location in the teacher-learner procedure?
The experiment took place in Yale University. Milgram manipulated this by having participants complete the teacher-learner procedure in a run down building.
How did Milgram manipulated Uniform in the teacher-learner procedure?
The experimenter wore a grey lab coat. Milgram manipulated the uniform of the experimenter by having the experimenter exiting the procedure before it started after taking an important phone call. A normal civilian replaces him (dresses in normal clothes) as “the teacher is busy” taking a phone call.
Obedience in Proximity percentages.
Originally; 65% of participants obey the experiment.
In condition, 40% of of participants obeyed the experiment.
Obedience of Location percentages.
Originally; 65% of participants obey the experiment.
In this condition, 47.5% of participants obeyed.
Obedience of Uniform in percentages.
Originally; 65% of participants obey the experiment.
In this condition, 20% of participants obeyed.
