AO3 - Situational Variables Affecting Obedience

• Research to support situational variables affecting obedience was a field experiment conducted by Bickman in New York. He had confederates dress in 3 different outfits (security guard, milkman, business man) and ask passers-by to give money to pay for parking or pick up litter. It was found that the participants were twice as likely to follow the instructions of the confederate wearing the security uniform rather than the business man. Therefore supporting the power of uniform as a situational variable affecting obedience as participants were twice more likely to follow orders due to uniform.
• Milgram's research into variables affecting obedience can be criticised for gender bias as only males were used. This makes if difficult to generalise the findings to females as they may obey differently, for example some research suggests that females may be more obedient due to their gender role dictating that they may be more submissive. For example, Sheridan and King found that when ordered to give electric shocks to a puppy, females obeyed 100% of the time compared to 54% of males. Therefore weakening the external validity of Milgram's research as the variables affect people differently.
• Furthermore, Milgram's research into variables affecting obedience has been criticised by Mandel. Milgram's research suggests that obedience decreases when the proximity between the learner and teacher increases because the teacher is seeing the direct impact of their actions. However, the mass killing of Jews in the holocaust was conducted in close proximity. Also, Milgram states that obedience increases due to the presence of uniforms but Mandel argues that this offers an excuse for evil behaviour, it is offensive to survivors to suggest that Nazis were victims of situational variables.
• Moreover, Milgram's research can be criticised for being prone to demand characteristics due to the extra manipulation of variables. For example, in the power of uniform variation when the experimenter left the room and an 'ordinary member of the public' gave the orders, even Milgram could recognise that it was very staged and participants may have figured out the truth about what the research intended to measure. Therefore limiting the internal validity of Milgram's research as it is unclear whether the findings are due to obedience or because participants saw through the deception.