Social Influence : Obedience Flashcards
Obedience
- When an individual follows direct orders from a person in authority
- They have power do punish when obedience doesn’t occur
Destructive Obedience
- When an individual obeys an order to do something immoral
Miligram : Aim
- miligram wanted to know if germans were more obedient to authority
- find out if ordinary American citizens would obey unjust orders and inflict pain because they were instructed
Miligram ( procedure ) : how many participants ?
40 male volunteers who responded to an advert in a local paper on ‘punishment and learning’
Miligram ( procedure ) : what were they told about the experiment in the newspaper ?
‘punishment and learning’ task
Miligram ( procedure ) : where was it conducted ?
Yale University
Miligram ( procedure ) : who was involved ?
teacher (participant) , learner , experimenter
Miligram ( procedure ) : what did the teacher watch the learner do ?
They watched the learner being strapped to a chair and a real sample shock was given
Miligram ( procedure ) : procedure when experimenter and teacher were in the same room ?
Learner recalled word pairs and if wrong answer was given shccks started from 15V to 450V
Miligram ( procedure ) : are the shocks real ?
the shocks weren’t real and the answers were prerecorded
Miligram ( procedure ) : what happened at 300V,315V and 330V
300V = learner complained about a weak heart 315V = banged on the wall and demanded to leave 330V = learner became silent
Miligram ( procedure ) : what happened if the teacher tried to stop the experiment ?
the experimenter gave prods
Miligram ( procedure ) : example of prods
‘the experimenter requires that you continue’
Milgram ( findings) : how many participants continued to 450 volts ?
65%
Milgram ( findings) : how did participants react ?
- extreme tension
- sweat , stutter
Milgram ( findings) : what did 3 participants have ?
Full blown uncontrollable seizures
Milgram ( findings) : what did the students estimate the results would be ?
No more than 3% would go to 450V
Conclusions : what would ordinary people do in the right circumstances ?
Obey unjust orders
Conclusions : are Germans different from others ?
- Germans aren’t different from other people in different countries .
- if hitler was in a different country it would’ve still happened
Miligram evaluation : - ethical
- deception as they were told it’s a punishment and learning task
- difficult for participants to withdraw because of the prods
Miligram evaluation : + le jeu de la mort
- Le jeu de la mort documentary found similar results and 80% when to maximum .
- this means conditions in milgrams were controlled so it’s repeatable
Miligram evaluation : - lack ecological validity
- tested in a lab setting which is different to real life so conditions are too extreme
- however Sheridan and king conducted real shocks on puppies dn 54% males/100% woman obeyed.(act same way knowing shows were real)
Miligram evaluation : - lacks population validity
- he used 40 male participants so results can’t be generalised
- other populations can be different e.g woman
Situational
Features of the environment that impact the degree to which individuals obey