obedience

• Aim


  To investigate how far ordinary people will go in obeying an authority figure.
• Method


  A laboratory experiment. Milgram recruited 40 volunteers by advertising for a memory and learning experiment. An experimenter introduced each participant to 'Mr Wallace', who they were told was another participant - but was actually a confederate working for Milgram. 'Mr Wallace' is strapped to a chair with electric shock plates. The participant (learner) answers Qs. For any incorrect answers, the experimenter must give an electric shock by pressing a switch on a generator. The generator went from 15 to 450 volts and the voltage must be increased for every wrong answer.
• Results


  26 out of 40 (65%) continued up to the max shock level of 450 volts. Fourteen broke off earlier in the procedure. However, all participants (100%) delivered up to 300 volts. There was a high incidence of sweating, trembling and stuttering.
• Conclusion


  Ordinary people are extremely obedient to authority, even when asked to behave in an inhumane manner. It is not necessarily evil people who commit atrocitied, but ordinary people obeying authority
• Evaluation (Strengths)


  Most participants accepted the reality of the situation, the covsr story. They were fully convinced they were delivering 'extremely painful' electric shocks and hurting the victim

  Milgram made sure all participants were debriefed after the experiment. They were all reconciled with the actor to prove no harm was inflicted to 'Mr Wallace'.
• Evaluation (Weakness)


  The fact that the sample was purely American men means we cannot generalise results and assumr all people will behave in the same way - however, the study has been replicated across cultures and found similar results

  Informed consent was not obtained from subjects - this means they weren't aware of what they were going to be doing.
• Analysis


  Although Milgram's study was an interesting display of obedience, the experiment lacked mundane realism - in that it might not be comparable to everyday life. Orne (1962) doubted that the participants believed the electric shocks, and predicted such a high level of obedience in the face of true harmful consequences would not exist in the real world.
• Analysis E+


  One strength of the Milgram (1963) study is that after the experiment had taken place all of the participants were debriefed by Milgram himself. This is significant because this gives the participants a chance to talk about how they are feeling and helps them understand what they were involved in. The participants were further assured that no real harm was rkne as they were brought back together with the actor that was 'receiving the shocks', so this gave the participants peace of mind to know that they didn't actually cause harm.
• Analysis E-


  One weakness of the Milgram (1963) study was that there was a lack of opportunity for participants to withdraw from the experiment. This is significant because while taking part in the experiment a number of participants expressed they were uncomfortable but were denied the opportunity to withdraw. This may make participants feel 'trapped' in that they are forced to inflict pain on another, even though they are against doing so in that situation.

  Milgram's (1963) experiment has many pros and cons, one of the cons of his experiment is that tje samlle of subjects was 40 male Americans. This is significant because the results will not represent the obedience rates of both genders, decreasing ecological validity. Furthermore, with only American participants being selected, cultural factors may have played a cruicial part in the obedience rates found. This means the results may not represent wider obedience rates across the world, in different cultures, further decresding the ecological validity.
• Analysis V


  Another conclusion from the Milgram (1963) study is that it provides reasoning for why people obey harmful instructions. In the Milgram study, participants used the reason for their high rate of harmful obedience that "I was just obeying orders". This is interesting because this is a reason that many give for obeying harmful orders even now in the 21st century and therefore shows the validity of the Milgram study.