Situational Variables AO3

• +One strength is that other studies have demonstrated the influence of situational variables on obedience. In NYC, Behman conducted a field experiment and had 3 confederates dress in different attire: a jacket and tie, milkmans outfit and a security guard's uniform. The confederates individually stood in the street and asked strangers to do various tasks; pick up litter, give them a coin for the parking meter. People were twice as likely to obey the security guard than the jacket and tie this supports the view that situational variables have a powerful effect on obedience.
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  -One limitation: participants may’ve guessed the procedure was fake. Orne & Holland point this out in the baseline study and say its even more likely in the variation studies due to the manipulation of variables.
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  -In the variation where 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 beause the participants saw through the deception and just play acted in response to demand characterstics.
• +One strength of Milgram’s findings: they've been replicated in other cultures. Meeus and Raajmakers 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 Milgrams proximity findings: when the person giving answers wasn't present, conformity dropped dramatically. This suggests that Milgram‘s findings about obedience are valid across cultures and apply to females too.
• -Replications of Milgrams research aren't very cross-cultural: Smith & Bond identified only two replications between 1968-1985 that took place in non-Western countries: India & Jordan. Other countries involved have similar notions about the role of authority and so aren't that culturally different from the US.