classic and contemporary studies

• Aim of Burger 2009?

  • to test if obedience levels were the same as in the early 1960s
  • if modelled refuse; has an impact on obedience
  • if personality differences in empathy would affect the outcome
• Procedure of Burger- base condition

  • A screening process was used, leaving 70 volunteers.
  • The script resembles Milgram’s but the test shock that the participant receives is only 15V rather than Milgram’s painful 45V.
  • The teacher reads out 25 multiple choice questions and the learner uses a buzzer to indicate the answer. If the answer is wrong, the experimenter directs the teacher to deliver a shock, starting at 15V and going up in 15V intervals.
  • The learner indicates he has a “slight heart condition” 
  • At 75V the learner starts making sounds of pain
  • At 150V the learner cries that he wants to stop and complains about chest pains.
• Procedure of Burger- refusal condition

  • a second confederate pretends to be a second teacher
  • This teacher delivers the shocks, with the naïve participant watching. At 90V the confederate teacher turns to the naïve participant and says “I don’t know about this.”
  • He refuses to go on and the experimenter tells the naïve participant to take over delivering the shocks.
• Findings of Burger 2009

  • Burger found that 70% of participants in the baseline condition were prepared to go past 150V- less than Milgrams
  • Empathy did not make a significant difference to obedience. However, in the base condition, those who stopped at 150V or sooner did have a significantly higher locus of control
• Conclusion of Burger:

  concludes that Milgram’s results still stand half a century later. People are still influenced by situational factors to obey an authority figure, even if it goes against their moral values.
• Burger replication study 2009- reliability

  Shows great inter-rater reliability and it replicates Milgrams original study into obedience using his variations. This shows other people can view his participants’ behaviour and judge obedience for themselves.
• Burger replication study 2009- validity

  In real life, teachers are not asked to deliver electric shocks to learners. Additionally stopping the study at 150V may be invalid. Perhaps participants who were prepared to go to 165V would still have dropped out later.
• Burger replication 2009-ethics

  Burger screened out participants who were likely to be distressed by the study. The Experimenter was a trained clinical psychologist who could identify signs of distress and would stop the experiment if anyone seemed to be disturbed by what was happening Burger reduced the test shock from a painful 45V to a mild 15V. He also stopped the study at 150V so he didn’t force anyone to “go the distance” to 450V.