Social Influence- Situational factors affecting Obedience

Question 1

Milgram (1963)

Procedure-

How many ppts. involved at a time in the series of conditions?

Answer 1

40

Question 2

What were participants told?

Answer 2

It was a study of how punishment affects learning

Question 3

How many experimental confederates were there and who were they?

Answer 3

2 = an experimenter and a 47 year old man who was introduced as another volunteer participant

Question 4

How was the position of teacher and learner decided?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

What was teacher required to do?

Answer 5

Test the learners ability to test the learners ability to remember word pairs.

Question 6

What happened when the learner gets a word wrong?

Answer 6

Must administer increasingly strong electric shocks

Question 7

Electrical shock volt range?

Answer 7

(Starting at 15 volts all the way up to maximum of 450 volts going up in 15 volt increments

Question 8

What happened in the voice-feedback study?

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

What happens if the teacher asks to stop?

Answer 9

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”

Question 10

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-

Answer 10

Very few would pass 150 volts and 1 in a 1000 would administer the full 450 volts

Question 11

Real outcome-

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Situational factors in obedience

Proximity

Location

Power of Uniform

Answer 12

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

Question 13

How much did obedience fall in the proximity variation?

Answer 13

40% (teacher could experience learners anguish more directly)

Question 14

What would happens to obedience if the teacher was then instructed to force the learners hand into a shock plate?

Answer 14

Further 30% fall

Question 15

What did the experiments absences do to obedience when teacher was instructed over the telephone?

Answer 15

Only 21% continuing to maximum shock level with some even lying about following the procedure by only giving the weakest shock level

Question 16

Location

What happened to obedience when the experiment was moved to a run-down office in Bridgeport?

Answer 16

A slight drop in obedience rate = 17% fall in people shocking to maximum level

Question 17

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?

Answer 17

stopped people in the street asking to give change to a make researcher for an expired parking meter

Question 18

Obedience in police outfit?

Answer 18

72%

Question 19

Obedience as business executive

Answer 19

48%

Question 20

Obedience as Beggar

Answer 20

52%

Question 21

What was the response of people interview afterwards

Answer 21

People claimed to obey the woman in uniform because she appeared to have authority

Question 22

Evaluation

Ethical issues

What did Diana Baumrind (1964) say Milgram’s experiment lacked?

Answer 22

Lacked concern for the wellbeing of the research participants

Question 23

How did the Milgram deceive ppts?

Answer 23

Told ppts that they were in a study regarding the affects of punishment on learning instead of the true purpose of the study

Question 24

What did the mean participants couldn’t do?

Answer 24

Make an informed decision before giving consent to participate in the study

Question 25

The issue with the verbal prods

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Evaluation
Internal validity-lacking realism

What was Orne and Holland (1968) claim?

Answer 26

Participants in psychological studies have learned to distrust experimenters because they know the true purpose of the study is often disguised

Question 27

What did Perry (2012) discover?

Answer 27

Many of Milgram’s participants had been sceptical whether the shock were real

Question 28

What did one of Milgram’s research assistant do?

Answer 28

Split the group into doubters and believer and found that believer were more likely to disobey the experimenter and give only low-level shocks

Question 29

Evaluation-
Individual differences-influence of gender

What was discovered in Milgram’s female-only condition

Answer 29

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

Question 30

What did Blass (199) find when studying the 9 replications of Milgram’s study?

Answer 30

It was also consistent with Milgram’s findings with 8 out of 9 of the replicas finding no evidence of gender difference in obedience