A03

• What are the strengths of situational variables?

  1. Support for the power of uniform
  2. Cross-cultural replications
• What are the limitations of situational variables?

  1. Lacks internal validity
  2. Offers an ’obedience alibi’
• Strength = support for the power of uniform

  • Research has shown that uniforms can have a powerful impact on obedience
  • Bushman (1988) carried out a study where a female researcher dressed in a police style uniform, as a business executive or as a beggar
  • Stopped people in the street and told them to give change to a male researcher for an expired parking meter
  • Police uniform = 72% obeyed, business executive = 48%, beggar = 52%
• Strength = cross-cultural replications

  • Both Milgram’s original study and his variations have been replicated in other cultures
  • Meeus and Raajimakers (1986) used a more realistic procedure to study obedience in Dutch participants
  • Participants were ordered to say stressful things in an interview to a confederate desperate for a job and 90% obeyed
  • Also replicated Milgram’s findings concerning proximity, obedience decreased when person giving orders wasn’t present
• Limitation = lacks internal validity

  • More likely that participants would work out the procedure is faked in Milgram’s variations because of the extra manipulation
  • E.g. when the experimenter was replaced by a ‘member of public‘ even Milgram recognised that the situation was so contrived that some participants may have worked out the truth
• Limitation = offers an ‘obedience alibi’

  • Milgram concluded that the proximity of experimenter, teacher and learner, the location of the study and uniform are all factors that influence obedience
  • Mandel (1998) argued that it offers an excuse or ‘alibi‘ for evil behaviour
  • It is therefore offensive to survivors of the Holocaust to suggest the Nazis were simply obeying orders and were victims of situational factors beyond their control