Social influence - Obedience Flashcards
Who was obedience investigated by?
Milgram
What is obedience?
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.
What was the ethical guidance in Milgram’s study of obedience?
Did not break any official eithical guidance at the time because non existed.
It was because of his research that ethical issues became an urgent priority for psychology.
What was Milgram’s research on obedience?
Stanley Milgram 1963 designed a baseline procedure that could be used to asses obedience levels.
This Procedure was adapted in later variations by Milgram and the baseline findings were used to make comparisons.
What was Milgram’s baseline procedure?
40 American men volunteered to take part in a study, supposedly on memory.
When each volunteer arrived at milgram’s lab he was introduced to another participant ( a confederate of Milgrams).
They drew lots to see who would be the teacher and who would be the learner.
The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the teacher.
An experimenter was also involved (also a confederate dressed in a lab coat).
The study aimed to asses obedience in a situation where an authority figure (experimentor) ordered the participant (teacher) to give an increasingly strong electric shock to a learner located in a different room.
The shock were fake but the teacher did not know this.
What were Milgram’s baseline findings?
Every participant delivered all the shocks up to 300 volts.
12.5 stopped at 30 volts
65% continued to the highest level 450 volts
Milgram also collected qualitative data including obervations such as the participants showed signs of extreem tension:
sweat, tremble, stutter, bit lips, groan, and dig their finger nails into their hands.
What was the other data from Milgram’s study?
before the study Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants behaviour
The students estimated that no more than 3% of the participants would continue to 450 volts
This shows that the findings were unexpected the students underestimated how obedient people actually are
all participants in the baseline study were debriefed and assured that their behaviour was entirely normal
They were also send a follow up questionnaire 84% said they were glad to have participated
What were the conclusions from Milgrams study?
Concluded that German people are not different
The American participants in his study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person
He suspected there were certain factors in the situation that encouraged obedience so decided to conduct further studies to investigate these.
What is the evaluation on research support for Milgram’s study? (strength)
Strength- findings were replicated in a French documentary that was made about reality TV
What happened in the documentary Beauvois et al 2012 (the documentary supporting Milgram’s research) ?
This documentary (Beauvois et al 2012) foused on a game show made especially for the programme.
The participants in the game believed they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new show called Le Jeu de la Mort.
They wre paid to give (fake) eletric shocks (ordered by the presenter) to other participants (who were actually actors) infont of an audience.
80% of the participants delivered the maximum shock of 460volts to an apparently unconcious man.
What was one limitation of Milgram’s study?
It may not have been testing what he intended to test
75% of his participants said they believed the shocks were genuine
Martin Orne and Charles Holland 1968 argued that participants behaved as they did because they didnt really believe in the set up so they were play acting
Participants may have been responding to demand characteristics
What is a counterpoint to the limitation of Milgram’s study?
Charles Sheridan and Richard King 1972 conducted a study using a procedure like Milgram’s Participants gave a real shock to a puppy in response to oders from an experimenter
Despite the real distress of the animan 54% of the men and 100% of the women gave what they thought was a fatal shock
What did Alex Haslam et al 2014 show about Milgram’s study?
Participants obeyed when the experimenter delivered the first three verbal prods
However every participant who was given the first prod without exception disobeyed
According to social identity theory participants in Milgram’s study only obeyed when they identified with the scientic aims of the research
What were the ethical issues with Milgram’s study? And how did he deal with this?
Participants were decieved
Dealt with this by debriefing participants
What was the debfiefing session an opportunity for?
Him to explain the true purpose of the study and what had really happened
