Studying obedience: Milgram

• How many volunteers were there and how much were they payed?

  40 male volunteers payed $4.50
• What was Milgrams aim?

  To find out if ordinary Americans would obey unjust orders to inflict pain on someone else from an authority figure
• What did Milgram do to test obedience?

  • The teacher would tell the learner a list of words to remember and then the learner had to recall this list
  • When the learner (a confederate) answered incorrectly, the teacher (particpant) would administer a shock to the learner
  • The confederate was not actually shocked but they pretended to be
  • The voltage of the shock would go up by 15V each time they got it wrong
  • The experiment continued until either the participant refused to continue or they reached 450V (a lethal shock)
• What % of participants went to 300V

  100%
• What % of participants went to 450V (lethal shock)

  65%
• How did the researcher ensure the participant continued?

  Prompted them, eg “the experiment requires you to continue”
• Is obedience mostly due to situational or dispositional factors?

  Situational
• How was psychological harm dealt with?

  Participants were debriefed after and offered counselling
• How was right to withdraw an issue?

  Participants did have the right to withdraw, but they felt they had to stay due to the prompts
• How were the participants deceived?

  They were told it was a memory task