Obedience

• Milgram's findings


  • Replicated in a French documentary made about reality TV
• Documentary (Beauvois et al)


  Focused on a game show made especially for the programme
• PPs in the 'game'


  Believed they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new show 'Le Jeu de la Mort' (The game of death)
• PPs (actors)


  Received (fake) electric shocks ordered by the presenter in front of a studio audience
• 80% delivered max shock of 460V to an apparently unconscious man
• Behaviour almost identical to that of Milgram's PPs - nervous laughter, nail-biting, other signs of anxiety
• Milgram's original findings


  Supported about obedience to authority
• Findings were not just due to special circumstances
• Strength of research support

  • Other studies have demonstrated the influence of situational variables on obedience
• Field experiment in New York City

  1. Bickman had 3 confederates dress in different outfits - jacket and tie, milkman, security guard's uniform

  2. Individually stood in the street and asked passers-by to perform tasks such as picking up litter or handing over a coin for the parking meter
• Outfits worn by confederates

  • Jacket and tie
  • Milkman
  • Security guard's uniform
• People were 2x as likely to obey the assistant dressed as a security guard


  Than the assistant dressed in jacket and tie
• Supports the view that a situational variable, such as uniform, does have powerful effect on obedience
• Research support:

  One strength is that Milgram's own studies support the role of the agentic state in obedience

  Most of his PPs resisted giving the shocks at some point, and often asked the Experimenter questions about the procedure e.g. Who is responsible if Mr Wallace (the learner) is harmed?

  Experimenter replied I'm responsible - PPs often went through with the procedure quickly with no further objections.

  Shows that one PPs perceived they were no longer responsible for their own behaviour, acted more easily as the Experimenter's agent - as Milgram suggested
• Low internal validity

  One limitation is that Milgram's procedure may not have been testing what he intended to test
• Milgram reported that 75% of his PPs said they believed that shocks were genuine
• Orne and Holland argued that PPs behaved as they did because they didn't really believe the set up, so they were 'play-acting'
• Perry's research confirms this
• Perry listened to tapes of Milgram's PPs and reported that only about half of them believed the shocks were real
• Two-thirds of these PPs were disobedient
• This suggests that pps may have been responding to demand characteristics, trying to fulfill the aims of the study
• Counter point:

  However, Sheridan and King conducted a study using a procedure like Milgram's. PPs (all students) gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter. Despite the real distress of the animal, 54% of the men and 100% of the women gave what they thought was a fatal shock. This suggests that the effects in Milgram's study were genuine because people behaved obediently even when the shocks were real.
• Milgram's conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified
• Haslam et al showed that Milgram's PPs obeyed when the Experimenter delivered the first three verbal prods
• Every PP who was given the 4th prod ('you have no other choice, you must go on') without exception disobeyed
• According to social identity theory


  PPs in Milgram's study only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research ('The experiment requires that you continue')
• When they were ordered to blindly obey an authority figure, they refused
• This shows that SIT may provide a more valid interpretation of Milgram's findings
• Milgram himself suggested that 'identifying with the science' is a reason for obedience
• Ethical issues:

  The PPs in this study were deceived. For example, they thought that the allocation of roles (Teacher and Learner) was random, but in fact it was fixed. They also thought the shocks were real. Milgram dealt with this by debriefing PPs. However, Baumrind criticised Milgram for deceiving his PPs. She objected because she believed that deception in psychological studies can have serious consequences for PPs and researchers
• Cross-cultural replications


  • Milgram's findings have been replicated in other cultures
  • Suggests Milgram's findings about obedience are not just limited to Americans or men, but are valid across cultures and apply to women
• Meeus and Raaijmakers study

  1. Used a more realistic procedure than Milgram's

  2. Ordered PPs to say stressful things in an interview to someone (a confederate) desperate for a job

  3. 90% obeyed
• When the person giving the orders was not present


  Obedience decreased dramatically
• Milgram's findings concerning proximity were replicated
• Counterpoint:

  However, replications of Milgram's research are not very 'cross-cultural'. Smith and Bond identified just two replications between 1968 and 1985 that took place in India and Jordan - both countries quite different from the US. Whereas the other countries involved (e.g. Spain, Australia, Scotland) are quite culturally similar to the US (e.g. they have similar notions about the role of authority). Therefore, it may not be appropriate to conclude that Milgram's findings (including those about proximity, location and uniform) apply to people in all or most cultures
• Low internal validity

  One limitation is that PPs may have been aware that the procedure was faked
• Orne and Holland made this criticism of Milgram's baseline study
• It is even more likely in his variations because of the extra manipulation of variables
• Variation where the Experimenter is replaced by a 'member of the public'

  • Even Milgram recognised that this situation was so contrived that some PPs may well have worked out the truth
• In all of Milgram's studies it is unclear whether the findings are genuinely due to the operation of obedience or because PPs saw through the deception and just 'play-acted' (responded to demand characteristics)