Social Influence- Situational factors affecting Obedience Flashcards
Milgram (1963)
Procedure-
How many ppts. involved at a time in the series of conditions?
40
What were participants told?
It was a study of how punishment affects learning
How many experimental confederates were there and who were they?
2 = an experimenter and a 47 year old man who was introduced as another volunteer participant
How was the position of teacher and learner decided?
The fake and real ppt would draw lots to decide, this was rigged so that the real participant was always the teacher and the fake participants the learner
What was teacher required to do?
Test the learners ability to test the learners ability to remember word pairs.
What happened when the learner gets a word wrong?
Must administer increasingly strong electric shocks
Electrical shock volt range?
(Starting at 15 volts all the way up to maximum of 450 volts going up in 15 volt increments
What happened in the voice-feedback study?
- the learner in the other room gave mainly wrong answers
- received fake shocks in silence
- until they reached 300 volt level =this point would pound the wall and gave no response to the next question
- repeated this at 315 volts and from then on said/did nothing
What happens if the teacher asks to stop?
The experimenter had a series of prods to repeat such as “it is absolutely essential that you continue” or “you have no other choice, you must go on”
Findings
Before the study, Milgram asked psychiatrists, college students and colleagues to predict how long ppts would go for before refusing to continue
Average predictions-
Very few would pass 150 volts and 1 in a 1000 would administer the full 450 volts
Real outcome-
65% of ppts continued to maximum shock level (with the shock generator being labelled “Danger:sever shock at 420 volts” and “XXX” at 450
In fact all ppts went above 300 volts
12.5% stopping at 300
Situational factors in obedience
Proximity
Location
Power of Uniform
Proximity - both teacher and learner were seated in the same room
Location-Studies conducted in a run-down office in Bridgeport instead of Yale University
Power of Uniform- changing uniform of a female researcher stopping people in the street and asking them to give money to a male researcher for an expired parking meter
How much did obedience fall in the proximity variation?
40% (teacher could experience learners anguish more directly)
What would happens to obedience if the teacher was then instructed to force the learners hand into a shock plate?
Further 30% fall
What did the experiments absences do to obedience when teacher was instructed over the telephone?
Only 21% continuing to maximum shock level with some even lying about following the procedure by only giving the weakest shock level
Location
What happened to obedience when the experiment was moved to a run-down office in Bridgeport?
A slight drop in obedience rate = 17% fall in people shocking to maximum level
Power of uniform
Bushman (1988) carried out a study where a female researcher dressed as either “a police style uniform” or as a “business executive” or as a “beggar”
What would the female researcher do?
stopped people in the street asking to give change to a make researcher for an expired parking meter
Obedience in police outfit?
72%
Obedience as business executive
48%
Obedience as Beggar
52%
What was the response of people interview afterwards
People claimed to obey the woman in uniform because she appeared to have authority
Evaluation
Ethical issues
What did Diana Baumrind (1964) say Milgram’s experiment lacked?
Lacked concern for the wellbeing of the research participants
How did the Milgram deceive ppts?
Told ppts that they were in a study regarding the affects of punishment on learning instead of the true purpose of the study
What did the mean participants couldn’t do?
Make an informed decision before giving consent to participate in the study
The issue with the verbal prods
To an extent took away the idea of “right to withdraw” making it difficult for some participants who felt they had no choice about continuing
Evaluation
Internal validity-lacking realism
What was Orne and Holland (1968) claim?
Participants in psychological studies have learned to distrust experimenters because they know the true purpose of the study is often disguised
What did Perry (2012) discover?
Many of Milgram’s participants had been sceptical whether the shock were real
What did one of Milgram’s research assistant do?
Split the group into doubters and believer and found that believer were more likely to disobey the experimenter and give only low-level shocks
Evaluation-
Individual differences-influence of gender
What was discovered in Milgram’s female-only condition
Self-reported stress of the females who went to maximum shock level was significantly higher than for males…
…however the rate of obedience was exactly the same as for males in s comparable condition
What did Blass (199) find when studying the 9 replications of Milgram’s study?
It was also consistent with Milgram’s findings with 8 out of 9 of the replicas finding no evidence of gender difference in obedience
