Milgram’s Research AO3

Cards (10)

  • +Milgram’s findings were replicated in a French documentary that was made about reality TV. The documentary (Beavois) focused on a game show made for the programme. The participants in the game believed they were contestants for a pilot episode for a new show called Le Jeu de la Mort - the game of death where they were paid to give (fake) electric shocks ordered by the presenter to other participants (confederates / actors) in front of a studio audience. 80% of participants delivered the maximum shock of 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man.
  • +In the French documentary, the behaviour was almost identical to that of Milgram’s participants: nervous laughter, nail-biting other signs of anxiety. This supports Milgram’s original findings about obedience to authority and demonstrates that the findings weren’t just due to special circumstances.
  • -Milgram’s conclusions about blind obedience may not be justfied. Haslam showed that Milgram’s participants obeyed when the experimenter delivered the first verbal prods: Please continue, Please go on, The experiment requires that you continue, It is absolutely essential that you contine. However, every participant that was given the 5th prod: You have no other choice, you must go on, without exception disobeyed.
  • -According to SIT, participants in Milgram’s study only obeyed when they identified with the specific aims of the research.When they were ordered to blindly obey an authority figure they refused. This shows that SIT - social identity theory - may provide a more valid interpretation of Milgram's findings, especially as Milgram himself suggested that identifying with the science is a reason for obedience
  • -Milgram’s procedure may not have been testing what he intended to test. Milgram reported that 75% of participants believed the shocks were real. Orne & Holland argued that participants behaved as they did; they didn’t really believe in the setup, so they were play acting: Perry's research confirms this. They listened to tapes of Milgram’s participants and reported that only about half of them believed the shocks were genuine. 213 of these participants were disobedient. This suggests that participants may've been responding to demand characteristics.
  • +Sheridan & King conducted a study using a procedure similar to Milgram’s.
    Participants gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimentor. Despite the real distress of the animal, 54% of made student participants and 100% of female student participants delivered what they thought was a fatal shock. This suggests that the effects in Milgrams study were genuine; people behaved obediently even when the shocks were real.
  • -Participants may’ve guessed the procedure was fake. Orne and Holland point this out in the baseline study and say its even more likely in the variation studies due to the manipulation of variables. In the variation when the experimenter was replaced by a member of the public , even Milgram recognised that the situation was so contrived that some participants may’ve worked out the truth.
  • -Therefore, in all of Milgram’s studies, its unclear whether the findings were genuinely due to the operation of obedience or because the participants saw through the deception and just play acted in response to demand characteristics.
  • +Milgram’s studies have been replicated in other cultures. Meeus and Raaijmakers used a more realistic procedure than Milgram’s to study obedience in Dutch participants. The participants were ordered to say stressful things in an interview with a confederate desperate for a job. 90% obeyed. The researchers also replicated Milgram’s proximity findings: when the person giving orders wasn’t present, conformity dropped dramatically. This suggess that Milgram’s findings about obedience are valid across cultures and apply to females too.
  • -Replications of Milgram's research aren’t very cross-cultural. Smith & Bond identified only two replications between 1968-1985 that took place in non-Western countres: India & Jordan. Other studies involved have similar notions about the role of authority and so aren't that culturally different from the US.