Situational variables affecting obedience

• Milgram identified several factors that he believed influenced the level of obedience shown by the ppts. These are all related to the external circumstances rather than to the personalities of the people involved. These include:

  • proximity
  • location
  • uniform
• Proximity: this refers to the physical closeness or distance of an authority figure to the person they are giving an order to. In Milgram's study, this also refers to the physical closeness of the 'teacher' to the 'learner'
• Proximity:

  • Teacher and learner were put in the same room, so obedience dropped from 65% to 40%.
  •  Milgram tried different ways in order to study the effects of proximity. One being touch proximity, this required the ‘teacher’ to force the ‘learner’s’ hand onto an electroshock plate when he refused to answer the question. Obedience rate then dropped to 30%.
  •  Remote proximity (experimenter left the room and gave instructions to the teacher by telephone). Obedience rate dropped to 20.5%. In remote proximity ppts pretended to give shocks or gave weaker shocks than they had been ordered to give. 
• Location: This refers to the place where an order is issued. The relevant factor that influences obedience is that status or prestige associated with the location. In such a situation the experimenter had less authority.
• Location:

  • Milgram's study was done in a prestigious location which was Yale university. In the location variation the study was carried out in a run-down building. Obedience rates dropped from 65% to 47.5%. Ppts were more likely to be obedient in the uni environment as they perceived the experimenter had legitimate authority and obedience was expected.
• Uniform: People in positions of authority often have a specific outfit that is symbolic of their authority. This indicates of the rest of us who is entitled to expect our obedience. Milgram carried out a variation in which the experimenter was called away because of an inconvenient phone call at the start of the procedure.
• Uniform:

  • In the original study, the experimenter wore a white lab coat as a symbol of authority. In the uniform variation, the experimenter was replaced by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ meaning they were not wearing the 'uniform' of a grey lab coat. Obedience rates dropped to 20%. This suggests that uniform has an effect on our want to obey because those around them see them as legitimate authority figures
• Explanation for proximity:

  Decreased proximity allows people to psychologically distance themselves from the consequences of their actions, however, when they have to witness and be physically together, this becomes difficult.
• Strength: research support

  There's other studies that have shown the influence of situational variables on obedience. E.g. Bickman (1974)  did an experiment in New York, he had 3 confederates with different uniforms, one wore a jacket and tie, in a milkman uniform and a security guards uniform. The confederates stood on the street and asked passers-by to perform tasks (picking up litter or lending money to someone for the parking meter). People mostly obeyed the security guard rather than the other two confederates. Is a strength because it supports the idea of uniform increasing obedience.
• Strength: cross-cultural replications

   His findings have been replicated in studies with other cultures. E.g. Miranda et al found an obedience rate of over 90% amongst Spanish students. However, Smith and Bond (1998) showed that replications of Milgram's research were not very multi-cultural, and were only able to identify 2 replications that were conducted in non-western countries
• Limitation: low internal validity

  Participants may have known it was a fake situation, especially in the uniform variation when the experimenter was called away and replaced by a passer-by wearing casual clothes. E.g. Orne and Hollands criticism was that ppts worked out that the procedure was fake. Even Milgram recognised that the situation was contrived. It could be participants displayed demand characteristics and did what they thought they needed to in order to please the experimenter, especially as they were being paid to take part. This also reduces the validity of the study.
• Limitation:

  David Mandel (1998) argues that it offers an excuse of ‘alibi’ for evil behaviour. In his view, it is offensive to survivors of the Holocaust to suggest that the Nazis were simply obeying orders and were victims themselves of situational factors beyond their control.