Milgram's study into obedience

• Conformity - changing behaviour,beliefs etc to fit in or to be right (often no authoritative figure)

  Obedience - following an order (authoritative figure)
• Obedience study procedure

  Milgram placed an advert, requesting for participants to participate in a Yale university study. (keen p's=demand characteristics=poor internal validity)

  40 males of different ages and professions then generated his sample.

  When they arrived, they were told by the ‘experimenter’ (confederate), that they will be participating in a study of how punishment affects learning.

  The other confederate, ‘Mr. Wallace’,who stated he had a heart condition,was a middle-aged man who sat in an adjacent room and was the ‘learner’. This was fixed every time
• Obedience study procedure

  The teacher then tested the learner Mr Wallace on his ability to remember word pairs.

  Each time Mr. Wallace got an answer ‘wrong’, the teacher had to administer increasing electric shocks, starting from 15 volts, going up to 450 volts (considered deadly).

  Whenever he got an answer ‘wrong’, Mr. Wallace had to give verbal feedback such as complaining about his heart condition.

  After 330 volts, Mr. Wallace said and did nothing. (standardised procedure)The teacher did not know whether he was dead or not.
• Obedience

  Whenever the teacher protested against continuing, they were given four

  verbal prods by the ‘experimenter’ before they could withdraw. For example:

  1.Please continue

  2.The experiment requires you to continue.

  3.It is absolutely essential that you continue.

  4.You have no other choice but to continue.
• Obedience findings

  65% of p’s continued shocked “learner” to full capacity of 450 volts, despite 450 volts being labelled “XXX”.

  Mr W went silent after 330v

  100% went to 300v
• There is research evidence that suggests that Milgram’s

  study still has relevance in modern-day society.

  Burger (2009) found levels of obedience that were

  almost identical to Milgram’s findings almost 50 years later.

  This suggests that Milgram’s findings still appear to apply

  as much today as they did back in the early 1960’s,

  Therefore, Milgram’s study into obedience can be praised

  for having temporal validity, as his findings still apply today.
• Another criticism of Milgram is that he underestimated the influence in gender and culture.

  Milgram used 40 American male participants.

  This is an issue because he only used males and generalised obedience rates to all genders,this id Androcentrism. Milgram's sample also showed Ethnocentrism,which is generalising from American obedience rates to all cultures. Therefore, Milgram’s study may lack population validity in measuring obedience, as his findings only apply to male

  American’s.
• Furthermore, Milgram’s findings could be a result of demand

  characteristics, instead of obedience. Milgram's p's knew they were part of an experiment which made them more likely to obey,than in real life. Also, Milgram used volunteer sampling to get p's for this experiment. This is an issue as this means the p's are keen to take part. This leads to demand characteristics which can affect the results of the study. Therefore, Milgrams study may lack internal validity,as it may not be a true measure of obedience in individuals.
• Explanations of obedience are social psychological explanations,situational variables and dispositional explanations.