milgram procedure

• what is obedience


  a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is mot forthcoming.
• explain the baseline procedure 1

  40 participants (aged 20-50) volunteered to take part in a 'memory' study - representative of the general population

  paid on arrival - less likely to behave how the researcher wants.

  draw rigged so participant always drew the teacher

  learner (mr Wallace) and experimenter are confederates
• explain the baseline procedure 2


  participants told they could leave any time

  teacher was told to administer increasingly severe electric shocks each time the learner makes a mistake in the "memory test"
• baseline procedure 3


  at 300 volts the learner would pound on the wall and give no response to the next question

  after 315 volts the learner pounded on the wall but there was no further response

  when teacher asked experimenter for guidelines they would give a standard response.
• what was the standard response


  "an absence of response should be treated as a wrong answer"
• what where the prompts


  "please continue/ please go on"

  "the experiment requires you to continue"

  "it is absolutely essential that you continue"

  "you have no choice, you must go on"
• what were the baseline findings


  no participant stopped below 300 volts

  12.5% stopped at 300 volts

  65% continued to the highest level of 450 volts

  qualitative data - obvious signs of stress and three "full blown uncontrollable seizures"

  students predicted that no more than 3% of the participants would continue to 450 volts

  all were debriefed, 84% glad to have taken part
• what were the baseline conclusions

  milligram concluded the germans were not different

  participants In his study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person

  he suspected factors in the situation might encourage obedience so conducted further follow up studies