🟣 Social Influence - Obedience

Question 1

What originally made Milgram want to investigate obedience

Answer 1

THE NUREMBERG TRIALS

• Adolf Eichmann
• head of Nazi’s gestapo department for Jewish affairs during WW2
• responsible for the death camps
• trial in 1961
• noted to be an ordinary family man
• no inhumane behaviour
• when asked why he claimed “I was just following orders”

Question 2

Procedure of Milgrams experiment

Answer 2

1. 40 male participants through newspaper adverts (ad stated participants would be involved in study about memory )
2. 20-50 year olds any profession, £4.50 to take part
3. Told randomly assigned teacher and learner but participants always teacher
4. Experimenter dressed in lab coat
5. Learner (confederate) strapped in a separate room and wired with electrodes
6. Teacher required to give shock every time they answer a question wrong
7. Started at 15 V and rose to 450 V
8. At 300V learner would pound on the wall and give no response

Question 3

Findings of Milgrams experiment

Answer 3

• every participant went to 300V
• 12.5% stopped at 300V
• 65% continued to 450V
• participants showed signs of extreme tension
• prior 14 psychology students said 3% would continue
• 84% said they were glad they participated

Question 4

Did Milgrams experiment have ecological validity and why

Answer 4

Yes because the lab environment reflected real life authoritarian relationships e.g a work setting

Question 5

2 support for Milgrams shock experiment

Answer 5

Ecological validity
Hofling et al (1966

Question 6

Hofling et al (1966)

Answer 6

Field experiment
Studied nurses on a hospital ward
21/22 nurses obeyed

A researcher posing as a doctor (dr smith) instructed them to administer 20mg of ‘astroten’. It was a harmless placebo but the label on the bottle clearly said 10mg is maximum

Question 7

What is a legitimate authority

Answer 7

Someone who has the right to tell you what to do

Question 8

What is an agentic shift

Answer 8

transition from acting as autonomous decision-makers to agents of authority

Question 9

Autonomous state vs agentic state

Answer 9

The individual acts according to their own values and takes personal responsibility for their actions.

agent carrying out the orders of an authority figure and defers responsibility to that authority.

Question 10

Limitations of Milgrams shock experiment

Answer 10

• orne and Holland (1968)
• Perry (2013)
• ethical issues

Question 11

Orne and Holland (1968)

Answer 11

Participants behaved the way they did because they didn’t believe the experiment was real. Showed demand characteristics

Question 12

Perry (2013)

Answer 12

Listened to tapes of Milgrams participants and confirmed that many of them expressed doubts about the shock

Question 13

Ethical issues of Milgrams experiment

Answer 13

• deceived participants
• assignment of roles was not random, fixed
• shocks not real, severe distress could occur in participants as they think they are causing harm to others

Question 14

When becoming agents, what do they experience

Answer 14

They act in the place of another individual, they will experience high anxiety during these choices known as ‘MORAL STRAIN’. They know what they are doing is wrong but are powerless to obey

Question 15

When does the agentic shift occur

Answer 15

When someone perceives another as a figure of authority. Due to their position in the social hierarchy

Question 16

Why do we see some people as legitimate authorities?

Answer 16

Because we all agree on the authority and we allow them to exert their power over us because it allows society to function normally

Question 17

Support for agency theory

Answer 17

• Blass and Schmitt (2011)
• real life crimes
  Nazi soldiers and My Lai Massacre
• Kilham and Mann (1974)
• Mantell (1971)

Question 18

Blass and Schmitt (2011)

Answer 18

Showed film of Milgrams study to students and asked them to identify who they felt was responsible for the harm caused to learner. Students blamed the experimenter and indicated the responsibility was due to legitimate aurthority

Question 20

Kilham and Mann (1974)

Answer 20

Replicated Milgrams procedure in Australia
Only 16% of participants went to highest voltage

Question 21

Mantell (1971)

Answer 21

German participants - 85% went all the way

Question 22

Limitations of Agency theory

Answer 22

• limited explanation
  Describes research findings but does not explain them. Can only account for certain situations where obedience occurs. Mandel (1998) . German reserve police Battalion 101. Men obeyed orders to shoot civilians in small town in Poland. These men did not have direct orders to do so