SOCIAL INFLUENCES: Obedience - Milgram's experiment

Question 1

How many variations of the experiment were there?

Answer 1

19

Question 2

How were participants collected?

Answer 2

Advertised for 40 20-50 year old male participants, to participate at Yale University; were paid

Question 3

Aim

Answer 3

To discover whether individuals would obey on authority figure who was instructing them to inflict pain upon another person.

Question 4

Describe the procedure

Answer 4

Participants told they were participating in a study on “the effects of punishment on learning”
Assistant in white coat and confederate met to discuss “purpose”
Name drawn, making participant always the teacher
Participant watches experimenter attach confederate to machine before being taken to another room.
Has to teach learner pairs of words; if they make a mistake, they have to give electric shocks of varying intensity. Deliberately makes mistakes
Researcher forces them to continue

Question 5

Conclusions drawn?

Answer 5

People tend to justify this behaviour by saying they were acting under instructions and were not accountable
Participants generally valued obedience to authority over health and safety of others.

Question 6

Ethical issues not abided?

Answer 6

Not given fully informed consent: full nature was not disclosed; plus confederate and name drawing
Health and wellbeing not safeguarded: caused severe anxiety in one participant
Not given withdrawal rights

Question 7

Ethical issued abided?

Answer 7

Debriefed: told shocks did not exist, and the learners were confederates

Question 8

Results obtained?

Answer 8

None stopped until 300 volts, 5 stopped at 300 however

26 continued to maximum 450 volts

Question 9

Differences in culture/gender

Answer 9

Same with females

Different depending on cultures but still occurring highly