obedience

• obedience:


  a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. the person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming
• milgram designed a baseline procedure that could be used to access obedience levels. this procedure was adapted in later variations and the baseline findings were used to make comparisons
• milgram's baseline procedure (1963):


  • 40 20-50 year old american male volunteers (memory study)
  • participant would always be the teacher but drew lots with confederate to make it seem fair
  • learner had to remember a pair of words and every time they got it wrong the experimenter ordered the participant to shock them
  • aimed to access obedience levels in a situation where an authority figure ordered the participant to give an increasingly strong (fake) shock to a learner in a different room (15v steps up to 450v)
• milgram's baseline findings:


  • all participants delivered shocks up to 300v
  • 12.5% stopped at 300v
  • 65% continued to the highest level of 450v - fully obedient
  • qualitative data: participants showed signs of extreme tension; sweating, trembling, full blown uncontrollable seizures
• other data from milgram's baseline study:


  • before the study, milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the findings
  • students estimated that no more than 3% of participants would continue to 450v
  • shows findings are unexpected as students underestimated how obedient people actually are
  • all participants were debriefed afterwards and sent a follow up questionnaire where 84% said they were glad to have participated
• milgram's baseline conclusions:


  • concluded that german people are not different
  • american participants were willing to obey orders even when they knew they might harm another person
  • suspected there were certain factors in the situation that encouraged obedience
• evaluating milgram; research support:


  strength

  • findings were replicated in a french documentary made about reality tv
  • beauvois (2012) focused on a game show le jeu de la mort. participants were paid to give (fake) electric shocks to other participants in front of a studio audience
  • 80% of participants delivered the maximum shock of 460v
  • behaviour was almost identical to that of milgram's participants - signs of anxiety
  • therefore this supports milgram's original findings about obedience to authority and demonstrates findings were not just due to special circumstances
• evaluating milgram; low internal validity:


  limitation

  • procedure may not have been testing what it intended to test
  • milgram reported that 75% of participants believed the shocks were real
  • orne and holland (1968) argued that participants behaved as they did because they didn't believe the set up was real so they were just play acting
  • perry (2013) listened to tapes of milgram's participants and reported that only 1/2 of them believed the shocks were real. 2/3 of these participants were disobedient
  • therefore this suggests that participants may have been responding to demand characteristics
• evaluating milgram; low internal validity:


  counterpoint

  • sheridan and king (1972) conducted a study using a procedure like milgram's
  • participants gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter
  • 54% of them men and 100% of the women gave what they thought was a fatal shock
  • therefore this suggests the effects in milgram's study were genuine because participants acted obedient even when the shocks were real
• evaluating milgram; alternative interpretation of findings:


  limitation

  • milgram's conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified
  • haslam (2014) showed that if the participant was given the 4th verbal prod 'you have no other choice you must go on' then they disobeyed
  • according to social identity theory participants only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research and so when they were asked to blindly obey an authority figure they refused
  • therefore this shows that social identity theory may provide a more valid interpretation of milgram's findings
• evaluating milgram; ethical issues:


  extra

  • participants were deceived
  • thought the allocation of roles was random
  • thought shocks were real
  • milgram debriefed participants after
• holfling's (1966) and rank and jacobson's (1977) studies:

  • hofling arranged for an unknown doctor to phone nurses and ask them each to administer a fatal overdose of an unknown drug to patients
  • 21/22 of the nurses obeyed
  • rank and jacobson replicated hofling's study with a few alterations. in their study, the nurses were told directly by the doctor to administer a known drug and were able to discuss this with each other
  • only 2/18 nurses obeyed