Obedience:

• LIMITATION:

  • Procedure may not have been testing what he intended to test
  • Reported that 75% of his pp said they believed the shocks were genuine
  • However Orne and Holland 1968 argued that pp behaved as they did because they didn't really believe in the set up, so they were 'play-acting
  • Perry's 2013 research confirms this
  • She listened to tapes of Milgram's pp and reported that only about 1/2 them believed the shocks were real. 2/3 of these pp were disobedient

  Suggests that pp may have been responding to demand characteristics trying to fulfil the aims of the study
• COUNTERPOINT:

  • Sheridan and King 1972 conducted a study using a procedure like Milgram's.
  • Participants (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.
• LIMITATION

  • Conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified
  • Haslam et al showed that Milgram's pp obeyed when the Experimenter delivered the 1st 3 verbal prods
  • BUT every pp who was given the 4th prod you must go on disobeyed
  • According to social identity theory pp in Milgram's study only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research
  • When they were ordered to blindly obey an authority figure they refused

  Shows that SIT may provide a more valid interpretation of Milgram's findings as Milgram suggested that identifying with the science is a reason for obedience.
• PROMIXITY:

  In the proximity variation, Teacher and Learner were in the same room. The obedience rate dropped from the original 65% to 40%

  In the touch proximity variation, the Teacher had to force the Learner's hand onto an 'electroshock plate' if he refused to place it there himself after giving a wrong answer. Obedience dropped further to 30%.

  In the remote instruction variation, the Experimenter left the room and gave instructions to the Teacher by telephone. Obedience reduced to 20.5%. The participants also frequently pretended to give shocks.