explanations of obedience

• outline Milgram's (1963) research into obedience

  • to investigate how individuals would obey an authority figure, even when their actions conflicted with personal morals.
  • sample: 40 male American participants who volunteered through a newspaper ad and were paid $4.50 to take part. participants were instructed to administer severe electric shocks starting at 15 volts going up in intervals to 450 volts to a learner (confederate).
  • when the participants refused to continue the experimenter would respond with a series of verbal probs.
  • 65% of participants administered the maximum shock of 450 volts.
• what did Milgram conclude?

  • Milgram concluded that, under the right situational circumstances, ordinary people will obey unjust orders from someone perceived to be a legitimate authority figure.
• what are the limitations of Milgram's study (AO3)?

  • broke ethical guidelines - deceived his participants, they believed they were taking part in a study on how punishment affects learning, rather than obedience. he also did not protect them from psychological harm (signs of distress).
  • lacks ecological validity - conducted in a lab, unable to generalise findings.
  • lacks population validity - used a biased sample of 40 male American volunteers from an individualistic society. unable to generalise results, especially collectivist cultures.
  • lacks internal validity - Orne and Holland
• what are the strengths of Milgram's study (AO3)?

  • Milgram counters the claim that his study has low ecological validity by stating that the lab can reflect wider authority relationships seen in real-life situations.
  • e.g. Hofling (1966) found that nurses were surprisingly obedient to unjust instructions from a doctor in a hospital setting.
  • research support.
• what is meant by agentic state?

  • when a person is acting independently this is called the autonomous state.
  • the opposite of this is being in an agentic state, which occurs when an individual carries out the orders of an authority figure and acts as their 'agent', with little personal responsibility and reduced moral strain for their actions.
  • to shift from autonomy to 'agency' is referred to as the agentic shift.
  • in Milgram's original experiment, 65% of participants gave the full 450 volts and were arguably in an agentic state.
• what is meant by legitimacy of authority?

  • Milgram believed that, by focusing on the procedure and following the instructions that were given by the experimenter, the participants were recognising the legitimate authority of the researcher, e.g. Yale vs run down building.
• what are the situational explanations of obedience?

  • proximity
  • location
  • uniform
• how does proximity affect obedience?

  • Milgram conducted a variation where the teacher and learner were seated in the same room; the % of participants who administered the full 450 volts dropped from 65% to 40%.
  • he also found that when the experimenter left the room and gave the instructions over the phone, obedience levels fell to 20.5%.
• how does location affect obedience?

  • Milgram conducted a variation in a rundown building in Connecticut instead of a lab in Yale.
  • in this variation, the % of participants who administered the full 450 volts dropped from 65% to 47.5% highlighting the importance of of location in creating a prestigious atmosphere generating respect and obedience.
• how does uniform affect obedience?

  • Milgram examined the power of obedience in a variation where the experimenter was called away and replaced with another 'participant' in everyday clothes pretending to be a member of the public, who was in fact another confederate vs the experimenter in a white lab coat.
  • the % of participants who administered the full 450 volts dropped from 65% to 20%.
• evaluating explanations for obedience:

  • Milgram's method of systematically changing one variable at a time in his experiments can be praised for having high reliability.
  • all of the procedures followed standardised methods and Milgram had high control over the variations, keeping it as consistent as possible.
• evaluating explanations for obedience:

  • there is research support, e.g. Bickman (1974) who conducted a field experiment in NYC where confederates asked members of the public who were passing by to perform a small task.
  • the outfit that the confederate was wearing varied from a smart suit jacket with a tie, a milkman outfit or a security guard's uniform.
  • members of the public were twice as likely to obey the order given by the 'security guard'.
• evaluating explanations for obedience:

  • there are differences to which authority figures are seen and accepted as legitimate in some cultures,
  • Kilman and Mann (1974) replicated Milgram's study procedures in Australia but found that only 16% of the participants shocked the learner at 450 volts.
  • Mantell (1971) found that it was 85% when conducted in Germany.
  • this cross-cultural comparison shows that different societies follow alternative hierarchal structures.
• evaluating explanations for obedience:

  • there is research support for the role of the agentic state in explaining high obedience rates.
  • when Blass and Schmitt (2001) asked students to watch the original footage and suggested who was responsible for the 'harm' caused to the learner, they named the experimenter.
  • it was thought that the experimenter, who wore a white coat as a scientist, was at the top of the social hierarchy and therefore had legitimate authority over the situation and outcomes.