Social Influence - Obedience : Situational Variables Flashcards
AO1
Situational variations (AO1)
1) Proximity – 40% > lower obedience
- Seeing the person you’re harming
2) Touch – 30% went up to 450 volts
- Obedience decreased
- You’re the one doing the harm and you’re the one in control
3) Remote – 20.5% obedience
- Exp is not there – no pressure to obey
Milgram concluded that the greater the distance between the teacher and the experimenter, the lower the levels of obedience
Additionally, the smaller the distance between the learner and the Teacher the lower the obedience (Variation 1 – 3)
The closer you are to someone you’re harming the less likely you are to conform
4) Location – 47.5% obedience has decreased
- Setting is less trusted because it’s less prestigious so people have less pressure to listen to what the experimenter has to say
The less official the location, the less likely people will obey
5) Uniform – 20% = decrease in obedience
- Uniform was less prestigious
- Lab coat gives authority
The less official the uniform, the lower the obedience of participant
AO3
- A weakness of Milgram’s procedure is that it has low internal validity
- For example, Gina Perry listened to the tapes of Milgram’s participants and reported that only half of them believed the shocks were real with two-thirds of these participants being disobedient
- This is a weakness as it shows that they behaved as they did because they didn’t believe
- However, it can be argued that a majority, 75% of the participants said they believed the shocks were genuine, so their response and behaviour were not biased and were genuine, thus validating their research
- Despite this, the participants may have been responding to demand characteristics, trying to fulfil the aims of the study
- Thus decreasing the validity of Milgram’s research for Obedience
- A limitation of Milgram’s research is that the participants may have been aware the procedure was fake.
- For example, researchers made this criticism of Milgram’s baseline study as they pointed out that it is even more like in his variations because of extra manipulation of variables like where the Experimenter is replaced by a ‘member of public’.
- This is a weakness because even Milgram recognised that this situation was so contrived that some of the participants may well have worked out the truth. Additionally, Milgram may have been testing change of person rather than change of uniform, if he truly wanted to test uniform he should’ve had the original researcher in normal clothes
- However, it can be argued it is still a well controlled study so we can still draw cause and effect solutions
- Despite this, in all of Milgram’s studies it is unclear whether the findings are genuinely due to operation of obedience or because the participants saw through the deception and just ‘play-acted’ by responding to demand characteristics
- Thus decreasing the validity of his findings for obedience A weakness of Milgram’s procedure is that it has low internal validity
- A strength of Milgram’s findings is that other studies have demonstrated the influence of situational variables on obedience
- For example, in a field experiment in New York, researchers had three confederates dress in different outfits – jacket and tie, a milkman’s outfit and a security guard’s uniform. The confederates individually stood in the street and asked passerbys to perform tasks such as picking up litter or handing over a coin for the parking meter.
- This is a strength as the results showed people were twice as likely to obey the assistant dressed as a security guard than the one dressed in jacket and tie, therefore showing people are more likely to conform to people in uniform, similar to Milgram’s study where people were more likely to conform to someone in a lab coat compared to a ‘member of public’.
- However, it can be argued that there could have been confounding variables affecting participants which caused them to act differently, such as being late for work and the amount of time they have causing them not to pick up the litter
- Despite this, this supports the view that a situational variable, such as uniform, does have a powerful effect on obedience
- Thus increasing the validity of his findings for obedience
// if research is unethical > causes stress on participants > causes behaviour to be unnatural > data is invalid (potential paragraph)
what are the three situational factors
proximity
location
uniform
proximity
This can refer to how close the person is to the consequences of their actions when obeying an authority figure.
Milgram found that the distance between ‘Mr Wallace’ and the participant influenced the obedience rate. The further
away the participant is from ‘Mr. Wallace’, the more able they are to avoid witnessing the consequences of their
obedient behaviour, and therefore the more likely they are to obey.
The proximity of the participant to the experimenter also has a bearing on the obedience level. This is probably
because the pressure the participant feels to obey the experimenter is lessened if he is not in the same room
location
Location can have an effect on obedience rates because some locations increase the perceived legitimacy of the
authority figure. For example, the experimenter in Milgram’s study had a high amount of perceived authority because
he was attached to a very prestigious institution (Yale University). Therefore, we would expect obedience to that
authority figure to be higher than if the study had have been carried out in a less prestigious institution.
uniform
A uniform can give the perception of greater authority, and therefore we would expect that obedience rates would be
higher if the person giving the order is wearing a uniform
evaluation of research into role of situational factors in obedience
Evaluation point 1
There is research evidence to support the role of proximity in obedience.
Milgram found that
when the teacher and learner were brought into the same room, obedience
dropped to 40%. Furthermore, when the experimenter left the room and gave
orders by telephone, obedience dropped to 20.5%, much reduced from the
original 65% obedience rate. This shows that having to directly face the
consequences of your actions (proximity to the learner), or not being directly
faced with the authority figure (less proximity to the experimenter), has an effect on reducing obedience.
Evaluation point 2
There is also research evidence to support the roles of both location and
uniform in obedience. Bickman (1974) found that 92% of pedestrians obeyed an order to
give a stranger money for a parking meter when the person giving the order was dressed as
a security guard, compared to only 49% when he as dressed in ordinary clothes, supporting
the view that wearing a uniform leads to increased obedience. Milgram found that when he
moved his procedure away from the prestigious Yale University, to a seedy downtown
office, and the experimenter was apparently just a member of the public, the obedience rate
dropped from 65% to 48%, supporting the view that location plays a part in obedience.
Both of these factors can be linked to the concept of legitimate authority. A uniform, or a
prestigious location and the status associated with it, both increase the impression of
legitimacy of the authority figure and, in turn, increase obedience.
Evaluation point 3
The research fails to consider other factors that may be important in understanding obedience. Kilman and
Mann (1974) replicated Milgram’s original study procedures in Australia but found that only 16% of the
participants shocked the learner at the maximum voltage level of 450V whereas Mantell (1971), on the other
hand, showed that it was 85% when conducted in Germany. This cross‐cultural comparison shows that in
different societies, children may be socialised differently from a young age to be more, or less, obedient. This
suggests that while situational factors like uniform and proximity are important, other factors may play a
more significant role in obedient behaviour
