Situational Variables On Obedience AO3

• Milgram's finding in relation to proximity


  Have been challenged
• Hofling


  Asked an unknown doctor to telephone 22 nurses, and ask them to give an overdose of an unknown drug
• 21/22 nurses obeyed
• Close proximity to the person giving the order


  Is not necessary for obedience
• Gentle shift


  A better explanation of why people obey, where there is a diffusion of responsibility, and people feel that the person who gave the order is responsible for the consequences
• Mandel found in WW2 mass killing of Jews was undertaken in close proximity of the victims without protest
• Using situational variables


  Is offensive to survivors of the Holocaust as it offers an 'excuse for evil'
• Milgram did use systematic procedures to ensure that cause and effect could be established
• Lack of ecological validity due to the artificial situation


  Demand characteristics could have caused participants to behave in ways that were not natural
• When the researcher was replaced with a member of the public

  Participants could have worked out it wasn't real, reducing internal validity
• It's hard to draw conclusions about why people obey based on this research
• Smith and Bond found large cultural differences in obedience
• It's difficult to generalise conclusions about why people obey that have been drawn from this type of research