milgrams study

• milgrams research - baseline procedure

  40 American men volunteered to take part in a study - supposedly on memory.

  when each volunteer arrived, he was introduced to another participant (a confederate of milgrams)

  the study aimed to asses obedience in a situation where an authority figure ordered the participant (teacher) to give an increasingly strong shock to a learner located in a different room - the shocks were fake but the teacher did not know this.
• milgrams research - baseline findings

  every participant delivered all the shocks up to 300 volts. 12.5% stopped at 300 volts.

  65% continued to the highest level of 450 volts - they were fully obedient.

  he also collected qualitative data, including observations, such as :

  sweating, trembling, stutter - 3 had full blown uncontrollable seizures.
• milgrams research - conclusions

  milgram concluded that german people are not 'different'.

  a large amount of people will follow request from the authority, despite not agreeing with the request.
• situational variables - milgrams study

  proximity - teacher and learner were in the same room - obedience rates dropped from 65% to 40%.

  touch proximity - teacher forces the learners hand onto the plate, teacher had to shock the learner by putting their hand onto the shock pad.
• remote instruction variation- milgrams study

  experimenter phoned them and gave prompts over the phone. This meant there was less pressure as it wasn't face to face.

  obedience reduced to 20.5%.
• location - milgrams study

  milgram conducted a variation in a run down office block rather than yale university. Obedience then fell to 47.5%.

  office seen as unreputable and untrustworthy - less likely to trust the study.
• uniform - milgrams study

  baseline study, experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of his authority.

  in another variation, the experimenter was called away due to an 'inconvenient telephone call' at the start of an exp.

  the role of the experimenter was taken over by 'an ordinary member of the public' (a confederate) - dressed in everyday clothes rather than a lab coat.

  obedience rates dropped to 20% - the lowest of all variations.