Milgram

• Milgram’s study aimed to understand the tyrannical nature of nazi officers and whether the holocaust could potentially happen in the future.
• Milgram wanted to find out if it was a human instinct to behave the orders of an authority figure, and commit horrific actions.
• Aim of the experiment:

  To investigate the level of obedience that would be shown when participants were asked to administer deadly electric shots by an authority figure.
• The independent variable could be considered the prods by the experimenter for the participant to carry on.
• The dependant variable could be the degree of obedience.
• The method used was a controlled observation, and the study collected both qualitative and quantitative data.
• Procedure:

  • 40 male participants recruited through advertisement, from varying backgrounds.
  • Everyone was paid.
  • They were introduced to confederate Mr Wallace.
  • There were asked to pick a piece of paper out of a hat to determine if they were teacher or learner.
• The roles of teacher and learner were reassigned, meaning the hat was rigged with two pieces saying ‘teacher’. Mr Wallace simply pretended he had received the ‘learner‘ role.
• The punishment for a wrong answer from the learner resulted in electric shocks.
• Each wrong answer meant the teacher had to increase the shock by a 15 volt increment.
• The machine went all the way from 15 volts to 450 - a lethal amount of electric which got would almost certainly kill someone.
• The task Mr Wallace was designed to do was a paired-associate word task, each working answer resulted in him ‘getting shocked’.
• Mr Wallace received his (fake) shocks in silence until 300 volts, when a pre recorded audio was played of hi crying out in pain and begging to be let out.
• By 400 volts, Mr Wallace was silent again.
• The ‘prods’ given by the experimenter:

  1. Please continue.
  2. The experiment requires you to continue.
  3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
  4. You have no choice, you must go on.
• If the participant continued to refuse on the 4th prod, the experiment was stopped.
• 65% of participants continued to the shock level of 450 volts.
• 100% of participants went to 300 volts.
• During the observation, Milgram noticed the participants tension became extremely bad. Some bursting into nervous laughter and others having uncontrollable seizures due to stress.
• Ethical issues:

  • Diana Baumrind said that Milgram’s study had apparent lack of concern for his participants.
  • Problems with deception, informed consent and protection from harm.
  • Milgram did take part in a debrief after the study.
• Internal validity

  • Orne and Holland claimed that participants have a distrust of the experiment or because they know deception can be used.
  • This meant the participants may have believed that Mr Wallace was not truly being hurt.
  • Perry discovered that many of the participants were skeptical if the shocks were real - believers were more likely to disobey.
• Individual differences

  • Eagley said that women may be more susceptible to social influence than men.
  • Milgram conducted a condition wits female - the self reported tension felt by the females when giving a maximum shock was higher than the males.
  • Blass found no difference between male and females in his 9 replications.
• External validity

  • Mandel argues Milgram’s conclusions are not born out of real life events.
  • In Poland, soldiers were asked to commit a mass killing of Jews. The commanding officer said that anyone not up to the task could be found other duties.
  • Despite the presence of factors that should increase defiance according to Milgram, only a minority took this offer.
• Historical validity

  • Blass studied Milgram’s obedience studies from 1961 1985 and found no difference is obedience levels.
  • Burger (2009) found that modern levels of obedience were almost identical to Milgram’s findings.
• David Mandel suggests that Milgram’s findings support situational factors that offer an alibi for evil behaviour - The Obedience Alibi.