variables affecting obedience

• Milgram - participants randomly selected 40 male volunteers. Aim - to observe whether people would obey an authority figure when told to harm another person.
• procedure: participants given role of 'teacher' and confederate as a 'learner'. pp asked learner questions and had to give 'electric shock' when wrong. increased 15v at a time. 300v - 450v. experimenter gave prods and pp were assessed on how many volts they were willing to give.
• findings: all went to 300v, 12.5% stopped at 300v and 65% went up to 450v.
• proximity: obeyed more when experimenter was in the same room - 62.5%. in a different room dropped to 21%. touch proximity condition - 30%.
• location: obeyed more in prostegious uni eg. Stanford. When moved to run down offices, dropped to 48%.
• power of uniform: obeyed more when experimenter wore a lab coat. Bushman - found people more likely to obey a researcher in a police uniform than a business executive.
• AO3 - issue around situational factor, increasing proximity to 'learner' doesn't always lead to descrease obedience. Study of reserve police battalion 101 found close physical proximity to their Jewish victims didn't make men less obedient.
• AO3 - raises socially sensitive issue, his findings suggest those responsible for killing innocent people can be excused that it's not their personality.
• AO3 - demand characteristics, Fromm claims pp knew part of scientific experiments due to being at Stanford university.
• AO3 - lack of realism. Perry found pp skeptical if the shocks were real or not, challenges validity.