situational variables affecting obedience (Milgram)

• milgrams study to test obedience in response to the holocaust

  40 male 20-50 year old volunteers to a newspaper advert for a study on 'memory'

  participants were given the role of teacher and introduced to confederates 'professor' in a lab coat and 'learner'

  learner was strapped to a chair in another room and had electrodes attached
• participant told to deliver electric shocks, becoming intense (15-450V) when 'learner' answered incorrectly

  at 300V the 'learner' made noise and refused to go on, after 315V the 'learner' made no more noise, indicating unconsciousness or death

  if the participant/teacher resisted the 'professor' encouraged them to continue
• results: participants distressed but obeyed. 100% to 300 volts, 12.5% stopped at 300 volts, 65% to full 450V
• proximity: learner in the same room, obedience dropped to 40%, holding hand on shock plate 30%
• location: at office block in run down area. resulted in drop in obedience to 47.6% due to lack of LOA
• uniform: professor replaced with confederate in normal clothes. obedience dropped to 20%, lack of LOA
• milgram's study and variations are criticised are causing distress, lacking ecological validity and mundane realism and the possibility participants guessed the shocks were not real and playing along. other studies addressed this.
• hofling 21/22 real nurses obeyed 'dr smiths' phone call order to give double the maximum dose of unfamiliar drug. this was a field study with familiar task (high ecological validity and mundane realism)
• sheridan and king participants give real shocks a puppy, seeing the puppy suffer behind a one-way mirror 54% of males and 100% of females gave full 450V shocks. this avoided participant guessing aims
• bickman demonstrated obedience to authority in the real world using a field study, as 39% of the public would pick up litter if asked by an investigator dressed as a security guard, but only 14% if dressed as a milkman