Obedience

• what is obedience?

  a form of social influence that involves complying with the demands of an authority figure.
• when was milgram experiment?

  1963
• what was milgrams aim?

  assess obedience levels in a situation with an authority figure.
• Describe milgrams experiment

  - 40 American men aged 20-50 volunteered for a "memory study" for $4.50 in return. - they were each paired with an undercover confederate, drawing tots to see who would be the learner and teacher (unaware it was fixed). - the learner confederate was strapped to a chair wired with electrodes, and had to remember pairs of words. - each time a mistake was made the teacher had to give an increasing voltage shock from a machine with the labelled voltages from "slight shock" to "danger! Severe shock". - at 315 volts, the learner pounded on the wall and could not be heard for the rest of the experiment. - if the teacher hesitated, the expeirment (an undercover confederate in a lab coat) provided 4 increasingly severe prods from "please continue" to "you have no choice but to continue", if they hesitated again after the 4th, the experiment was terminated.
• what results did milgram find?

  - every participant shocked to 300V - 65% went all the way to 450V - severe shock.
• What are the strengths of milgrams research?

  One strength of this study is its contribution to psychology. The results were unexpected and show us a more in-depth detail into obedience we know this because milgram asked 14 students to predict the data and they said no more than 3% would reach full voltage. Since laboratory conditions were used, a high degree of control over extraneous variables ensures they cannot confound the results allowing a cause and effect relationship to be established. Furthermore the standardisation of variables means they can be measured accurately, increasing the internal reliability which in turn increases the external reliability as it can be easily replicated.
• What are the weaknesses of milgrams research?

  However, due to its unethical nature, replicating this study would not be approved by the BPS. Not only did participants show signs of extreme stress including three seizures, there was no informed consent as participants did not know what they were signing up for, Milgram argued this with the concept that deception is necessary to obtain reliable results however for this to be accepted participants need to be informed of their right to withdraw and debriefed which was not the case with this experiment. Additionally the use of inducement has criticisms in psychological experiments as it discourages participants from withdrawing as they feel since they have been paid they are obligated to continue further increasing the unethicality of this experiment. Another criticism of milgrams experiment is the low internal validity as shown through Perrys 2012 research that found only 50% of the participants believed the shocks were real. Furthermore data collected may lack ecological validity as artificial conditions do not reflect real world scenarios questioning the generalisability of the results. Moreover there is a high risk of demand characteristics as participants may alter their behaviour based on their interpretation of the purpose of the experiment. Finally, Milgrams experiment had a limited sample size. In order to provide a comprehensive explanation for conformity a more diverse sample was needed e.g. gender and culture to ensure the results can be generalised to society as a whole rather than American male students, for example America is an individualist country (where conformity is less common) so results could differ in collectivist cultures like Asia. Furthermore, volunteer sampling has weaknesses as particular dispositions may be more inclined to volunteer.