Milgram

• Obedience - a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order
• The person issuing the order is usually of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming
• Milgram's sample involved 40 male participants aged 20-50 years old and all from the New Haven area
• Milgram used a volunteer sample of people who replied to an ad for a memory study
• Participants were introduced to a confederate at the beginning of the experiment
• There were 3 roles in Milgram's study:

  • the teacher
  • the learner
  • the experimenter
• The teacher went into another room with the experimenter and was told to shock the learner each time they got an answer wrong
• the experimenter was an authority figure
• the participant and confederate drew straws to decide which role they'd get. This was a fixed draw so the confederate would always be the learner
• The shocks started at 15 and rose to 450 volts
•  At 300v the learner pounded on the wall and didn’t respond to the next question
• 100% of participants continued to 300v
• 65% continued to the highest voltage
• Participants showed nerves, sweating, trembling, biting nails. 3 had seizures from the stress
• Conclusion of Milgram's study: ordinary people will follow orders given by someone of authority, even to the extent of harming an innocent person
• Orne and Holland argued that participants behaved the way they did because they didn’t really believe in the set-up and guessed the electric shocks weren’t real
• Perry listened to tapes of Milgram’s study and many participants expressed doubts about the shocks
• Hofling et al (1966) studied nurses in a hospital ward and found that obedience levels to unjustified demands by doctors were very high with 21 out of 22 nurses obeying
• Milgram has been criticised for ethical issues
• Many thought they didn’t have the right to withdraw as they were prodded by the experimenter to continue