Milgram 1961

• what were Milgram's aims

  1. test the 'German's are different hypothesis' by comparing obedience levels American and German
  2. investigate situational factors that influence obedience
  3. investigate whether situational or disposable factors were more important
• what was the 'Germans were different' hypothesis

  after the WWII people believed that German soldiers had a 'basic character flaw' that rendered them more obedient to orders of an authority figure.
• what sampling technique was used?

  opportunity sampling
• what was the age range of the sample?

  20 to 50 years old
• what sex were the participants?

  male
• why did Milgram want only a male sample?


  males were in the jobs for war (soldiers)
• what did Milgram have during the experiment?

  a confederate called Mr Wallace pretending to be another participant
• what were the participants told the experiment was about?

  the effect of punishment on learning
• why was the experiment rigged?

  the participant was always the teacher and confederate was the learner
• what did the learner have to do?


  remember word pairs correctly from a set of answers read by teacher
• what was the 'punishment'

  electric shocks
• what increment did the shocks go up by and to what total

  increments of 15 Volts and final was 450 volts
• what were the standardised verbal prods the experimenter would say?

  1. please continue
  2. the experiment requires that you continue
  3. you have no other choice you must go on
• why were the verbal prods standardised?

  to ensure that the internal reliability was the same for all participants
• why would the participants believe that the shock generator as real?

  the teacher role were given a 45 Volt shock
• what happened at the end of the experiment?

  participants were debriefed and reconciled with 'Mr Wallace'
• there was a 100% obedience rate up to 300 volts


  true
• how many of the participants went all the way to 450 volts?

  26 out of 40
• how man participants stopped between 300-375 volts?

  14
• what observations were there on the participants that suggest significant levels of stress?

  1. sweat
  2. stutter
  3. nervous laughter
  4. dig fingernails into flesh
• what variations did Milgram create for his experiment?

  1. baseline - learner banged on wall at 300v then refused to answer 315v and higher
  2. verbal feedback condition where there would be recorded screams from learner
  3. telephone instructions - experimenter was face to face but then stepped out but was on the phone
  4. rundown office building
• what were the findings in the verbal feedback condition?

  25 out of 40 participants went all the way despite being in extreme stress (62.5%)
• what was the conclusion for Milgram's verbal feedback condition?


  more aware participants are to the harm they are doing less likely they are to obey
• what was Milgram's investigating with the telephone variation

  1. impact of the physical distance between the teacher and experimenter
  2. whether the location change of experimenter changed obedience rates
• what were the results of the telephone variation?

  22.5% of participant (out of 40) went to 450 volts