Milgram baseline essay

• AO1 Describe the Sample (including sampling technique).

  Eg Milgram’s sample included 40 men aged 20-50 years, from New Haven USA.  They varied from unskilled workers to professionals and educational backgrounds.  They volunteered in response to an advertisement using a local newspaper and offered $4.50 to take part in the study.
• Describe relevant AO1 about Milgram's procedure. Validity

  Milgram’s procedure consisted of participants turning up to a lab at Yale university where there were two confederates.  They were asked to take part in research and told they had to administer an electric shock to the learner using a shock generator machine to help them with memory task. They drew roles however these were rigged and the participant was given the role of the teacher. The participant was deceived and told that they were taking part in a study on learning and memory, in addition they believed that the shocks were real.
• AO1 Describe the Procedure (standardisation)

  Milgram’s procedure started with the participants being individually brought into the lab by the Experimenter, who followed a script explaining that they had to help a Learner with memory tasks and administer an electric shock each time the Learner made an error.  The participant could hear the learner apparently crying out in pain when they gave them a shock.  At 300v the learner was heard to say, 'That's enough, get me out of here'. If the participant objected to giving the shocks, the Experimenter encouraged them to continue using 'prods'
• Conclusion:

  Milgram's study has probably created more debate than any other in Psychology.  The application of his work in terms of protecting people from following dangerous or unethical orders in business, medicine or the military have contributed positively to society.  However, the study will also be remembered for the ethical issues caused by the mistreatment of the ppts, who suffered both psychological and physical harm and there are concerns also about the validity of the findings, as there are criticisms that some ppts did not believe that the shocks were real. 
• State the strength:

  Milgram wanted to measure obedience behaviour that could look to predict the average persons actions.

  Milgram’s sample was varied as the participants ranged from skilled workers to unskilled workers and were from a range of ages 20-50 and all educational backgrounds, which means that the sample was representative of a range of people.

  Why is this a strength (GRV)

  Therefore, a strength of Milgram’s baseline study is the findings that most people will obey destructive orders from a legitimate authority figures can be generalised to the target population. 

   
• State the weakness:Milgram’s study was androcentric and ethnocentric, in addition, due to being volunteers, they may have had individual differences to those unlikely to volunteer.

  Evidence to support from the AO1:Milgram’s sample only included males who volunteered to take part from New Haven USA who were able to read and excluded students and anyone over 50.

  Why is this a weakness (GRV)

  This is a weakness of Milgram’s research as the findings that people will obey a destructive order from an authority figure have poor generalisability as other people may not respond in the same way.
• strength: Milgram’s study didnt give informed consent to participants. Milgram’s study controlled demand characteristics participants were deceived when they werent told aim of the study, were led to believe they had randomly been assigned role of teacher and were delivering real electric shocks to learner.This is a strength of procedure, as use of deception reduces demand characteristics increases internal validity of findings that most ppts will obey a destructive order from authority figure, can be confident that obedience was due to order given by authority figure making findings accurate.
• State the weakness:

  However, the internal validity of the study has limitations to it. As the artificial setting, means it is unlikely that the ppts would behave the same in a natural environment with an authority figure. The setting for the study was a controlled observation under laboratory conditions at the prestigious Yale University which most only portions of the population would have been in that environment.

  This means that the participant may not have behaved how naturally during the testing, which questions the accuracy of the findings to help us understand obedience.
• State the strength:

  Milgram’s study had standardised procedure as roles of participant as teacher and the confederate as the learner were always the same.  A set script was used by experimenter explaining aim and procedure. the responses from learner were pre-recorded and experimenter used the same prods with each ppt. the learner’s mistakes and responses were always same, stopping at 300v when the learner made no further sound.

  There is opportunity for replication is evident, which will allow the results to be checked for consistency and give the finding on obedience greater reliability.

   
• State the weakness:

  On the other hand, evidence from Gina Perry suggests that the experimenter deviated from the script and on occasion used up to 20 prods.

  Evidence to support from the AO1:

  The standardised procedure from Milgram puts forward that 4 prods were used for each participant, for example, ‘please continue’.

  Why is this a weakness (GRV)

  This means that if the study was replicated the levels of obedience might not be as high as 65%, which will bring inconsistency to the results, thus reducing the reliability.