milgrams research

• Baseline procedure

  40 American male volunteers took part in a study (held at Yale university ) they were told was about memory. Given instructions from an experimenter wearing a lab coat.

  A confederate was the learner, who was wired up to a ( fake ) electric shock.

  The learner had to remember pairs of words and every time they got it wrong the teacher (ppt) delivered a shock that got stronger each time, learner and teacher couldn’t see each other
• findings

  every participant delivered shocks up to 300 volts, 65%  reached the max 450 volts

  participants showed signs of extreme tension, sweating and 3 had seizures

  14 psychology students predicted that no more that 3% wold shock up to 450 volts
• conclusions

  Milgram concluded that there were certain factors in the situation that encouraged obedience
• strength of the baseline study is research support

  Findings were replicated in a game show, participants believed they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new show in France

  They were paid to give ( fake ) electric shock to confederates order by presenter in front of audience

  80% delivered the maximum shock 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man
• A limitation is the low internal validity

  The study may not have tested what was intended, Milgram reported 75% of participants believed the shocks were real, but some psychologists argue they behaved as they did because they didn’t believe the set up

  The tapes of Milgram’s research we listen to and only 50% of participants believe shocks were real

  However, a study where participants were instructed to give real shock to a puppy, despite the real distress of the animals, 54% of men and 100% of women gave what they thought was a fatal shock
• another limitation is that milligrams conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified

  A psychologist showed milligrams participants obeyed when the experimenter delivered the first three verbal prods.

  However, every participant that was given the fourth prod ‘you have no other choice, you must go on‘ without exception disobeyed

  this shows that participants in Milgram study only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research. When they were ordered to blindly obey a authority figure, they refused.

  social identity theory may be a better interpretation