Milgram Research into Obedience

• Obedience (AO1)

  A form of social influence whereby a direct order is followed by an individual. Person issuing the order is usually someone of authority with power to punish
• Aim

  To see whether people would obey orders even if it means harming others
• Procedure

  1. Recruited 40 male american participants from yale university through newspaper adverts

  2. Participants assigned to role of 'teacher'

  3. Confederates assigned to role of 'learner'

  4. Participant gave learner electric shocks ranging from 15-450 volts whenever an incorrect answer was given

  5. Pre-recorded audio of wall banging and screams played from learner side
• Location variation

  65% obedience at yale university, 48% at run down office
• Uniform variation

  65% obedience when researcher had lab coat, 20% when wearing regular clothes
• Bickman's findings into uniform variation

  • 76% of public picked up litter when asked by security guard
  • 47% when asked by milkman
  • 30% when asked by pedestrian
• Ethical Issues (AO3) -

  • Participants were deceived and led to believe they were testing memory when they were not
  • Participants were led to believe that the electric shocks and the 'learners' scream was real which caused psychological harm to participants (some even had seizures)
  • Does not protect participants from harm and breaches BPS guidelines making it unethical
• Lacks population validity (AO3) -

  • Sample consisted of only 40 male participants (androcentric sample)
  • Findings cannot be generalised to the rest of the population as we do not know how would women would respond in the same situation
• Lacks ecological validity (AO3) -

  • Very different from real life situations of obedience
• In everyday life, people obey far less harmful instructions rather than giving people electric shocks
• We cannot generalise findings from the Milgram study to real life situations of obedience
• We cannot conclude that people would obey less severe instructions to the same degree as in the Milgram study
• Findings of Milgram Study

  65% of participants went up to 450 volts and none stopped before 300 volts. Participants also showed signs of distress including sweating and trembling