obedience- milgram

• obedience>>>

  - Milgram (1963) designed a baseline procedure that could be used to asses obedience levels.

  - This was adapted in later variations by Milgram, and the baseline findings were used to make comparisons.
• baseline procedure>>>

  - 40 American men volunteered to take part in a memory study at Yale University USA,

  • volunteers= teacher
  • give fake electric shocks to the 'learner' in response to instructions from an experimenter ( bothe learner and experiment were confederates)

  - The baseline procedure was arranged so The Teacher couldn’t see the Learner but could hear him

  - electric shock given every time the Learner made a mistake on a memory task.

  - The shocks increased with each mistake in 15-volt steps up to 450 volts
• baseline findings>>>

  - Every participant delivered all the shocks up to 300 volts.

  - 12.5% (five participants) stopped at 300 volts ("intense shock)

  - and 65% continued to the highest level of 450 volts,

  - i.e. they were fully obedient.

  - Milgram also collected qualitative data including observations such as:

  - participants showed signs of extreme tension;

  - many of them were seen to 'sweat. tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan etc

  - 3 even had 'full-blown uncontrollable seizures
• other data>>>

  - Before the study, Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants behaviour.

  - estimated that no more than 3% of the participants would continue to 450 volts.

  - shows that the findings were unexpected - the students underestimated how obedient people actually are.

  - All participants were debriefed and assured that their behaviour was normal.

  - They were also sent a follow-up questionnaire

  - 84% said they were glad to have participated.
• baseline conclusions>>>

  - Milgram concluded that German people are not 'different.

  - The American participants in his study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm others

  - He suspected there were factors in the situation that encouraged obedience- so decided to conduct further studies to investigate these
• ao3 research support>>>

  • Milgram's findings were replicated in a French documentary about reality TV.
  • documentary (Beauvois et al. 2012) focused on a the game of death show
  • ppts were paid to give fake electric shocks to other participants (actors) in front of a studio audience
  • 80% of the participants delivered the maximum shock of 460
  • Their behaviour was similar to that of Milgram's participants - nervous laughter; nail-biting and other signs of anxiety.
  • supports Milgram's original findings about obedience to authority
• • ao3 low internal validity x>> (1/2)
  • Milgram's procedure may not have been testing what he intended
  • 75% of his participants said they believed the shocks were genuine
  • However Holland (1968) argued that ppts were ‘play-acting’ because they didn't really believe in the set up,
  • Perry's (2013) research confirms this.
  • She listened to tapes of Milgram's participants and reported that only about 1/2 believed the shocks were real.
  • 2/3 of these participants were disobedient.
  • … suggests participants may have responded to demand characteristics fit the aims of the study.
• ao3 low internal validity x>> (2/2)

  • - ]]However, Charles Sheridan and Richard King (1972) conducted a study using a procedure like Milgram's.
  • participants gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter.
  • Despite the real distress of the animal, 54% of the male student participants and 100% of the females delivered what they thought was a fatal shock.
  • … suggests that the effects in Milgram's study were genuine because people behaved obediently even when the shocks were real.
• ao3 alternative interpretation of findings>>>

  - Milgram's conclusions about blind obedience cant be justified.

  -Haslam et al. (2014) showed that Milgram's participant who was given the fourth prod ('You have no other choice, you must go on') disobeyed.

  - According to social identity theory (SIT), participants only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research

  When ordered to blindly obey an authority figure, they refused

  - … shows that SiT may provide a more valid interpretation of Milgram's findings