obedience

• what was Milgram's baseline study?

  40 American men. They drew lots on who would either be the L or T. But the draw was fixed so that T would always be the participant and L was the confederate.Whenever the L made an error, T delivered a shock. At 300V the L pounded on the wall and didn’t respond to the next question and at 350V they didn’t respond for the entire procedure.
• what were the results of milgrams baseline?

  All participants delivered up to 300v and 12.5% stopped after that. 65% continued to the highest level. The participants were showing signs of anxiety, distress and tension.The participants were debriefed after the study and 84% said they wwe glad to participate
• research support - eval?

  • milgrams findings replicated in a french documentary made about reality tv.
  • focused on a game show made for programme.
  • participants believed they were contestants in a pilot episode and were paid to give electric shocks to other participants in front of a studio audience.
  • 80% delivered maximum shock of 460V to unconscious man.
  • their behaviour showed nervous laughter, nail biting and anxiety.
  • supports Milgram’s findings to obedience and his findings weren’t just due to special circumstances.
• low internal validity?

  procedure may not have been testing what was intended to test. Milgram said 75% of his participants believed shocks were genuine. Orne and Holland said they were acting and Perry listened to tapes of Milgram’s participants and discovered that only half of them believed shocks were real and 2/3 of them were disobedient. This shows that they were responding to demand characteristics.
• counterpoint to low internal validity ?

  Sheridan and King conducted a study like Milgram and gave real shocks to a puppy. 54% of men and 100% of women gave what they thought was a fatal shock.So people behaved obediently even when the shock was real
• alternative interpretation?

  Haslam et al found that the participants continued when the experimenter gave the first 3 prods. When the 4th one (you have no other choice you must go on) they disobeyed. This is explained with Social identity theory.This is that the participants only agreed when they identified with the scientific aims of the study. So the social identity theory is a more valid interpretation.