SOCIAL-Milgram's electric shock study Flashcards
What was the background to Milgram’s study?
During WW2, millions of jewish people were slaughtered by nazi germany. Milgram was jewish, and had studied the trial of Adolf eichmann, who claimed that he was acting only on obedience. Milgram believed Germans had a biological defect on morality.
What did Milgram aim?
To investigate the process of obedience by testing how far Americans would go in obeying an authority figure.
Why was Milgram’s study a controlled observation?
There was no independent variable, only observed participant behaviour
What was the sample like?
40 men, aged 20-50 from new haven america
What was the procedure?
A participant is told that they would be completing an experiment on the effect of punishment on learning. A hat pull was used to allocate a teacher or learner role, but it was rigged, giving the participant teacher. Participant and victim placed in adjacent rooms, and victim was hooked up with electrodes.
Word Pair Task
The learner, who was a confederate, was given a word pair task. Teacher read out a series of word pairs from a list, and the first word of each pair was given with four other terms. Learner had to match the word with the correct term.
Shock Generator
The teacher was told to shock for each incorrect response, and increase the voltage by 15V each time.
From 0-450V.
Prods
If the participant showed unwillingness to continue, prods were given.
-Please continue
-The experiment requires that you go on
-It is absolutely essential that you go on
-You have no other choice, you must go on
What were the quantitative findings?
65% of participants went up to 450V
No participant stopped before 300V
What were the qualitative findings?
Sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lip, digging their fingernails into their skin
14 had nervous laughter
“I don’t think this is very humane…. I can’t go on with this”
What did Milgram conclude?
The situation produces tendencies to obey(most people are capable of harming others if told to by an authority figure).
The situation also caused extraordinary tension and emotional strain
Why was there such high levels of obedience?
Pressure from the experimenter, obligation due to receiving payment from the advert, researcher stated that the shocks werent harmful, etc
What were the appendices used?
The same shock generator,
The same sample shock was always given,
The same verbal prods were always given
Evaluate the study in relation to ethics
Protection from harm was breached as the situation caused huge emotional strain
Right to withdrawal was breached as the researcher ensured the participant continued with prods
Deception was breached as participants were told an incorrect aim to the study
Anonymity was breached as videos were published of Milgram’s participants
Evaluate this study in relation to validity
Population validity
Participants were only representative of men aged 20-50 from New Haven. Arguably, this is good as it represents the people in the german military at the time
Construct validity
