Milgram

• What is obedience to authority?


  A more direct form of social influence where the individual has arguably less choice whether to behave in a particular way, as they are faced with the choice of whether to obey a direct order from a person with higher status, or whether to defy the order.
• What is an autonomous state?


  Where you control your own actions, to being in a state of mind where you are ready to obey another. ....in an agentic state. This is called na agentic shift
• What did Milgram's research demonstrate?


  That ordinary people are astonishingly obedient even when asked to do something that goes against their own morality.
• What did Milgram's research suggest?


  It is not evil people that do evil acts, such as those seen in the Holocaust, but ordinary people who are just obeying orders.
• What was the study's aim?


  To investigate what level of obedience would be shown when participants were told by an authority figure using a laboratory based procedure. to administer electric shocks to another person.
• What was the study inspired by?


  The Holocaust and Milgram's contemplation over whether 'Germans were different' - was it something about the Germanic personality that made blind obedience easier, or are we all capable of horrific behaviour in certain circumstances?
• What were participants told?

  That it was a study to see how punishment affects learning.
• Link to research methods: Why is the study, strictly speaking, not an experiment, as the study is often described as?


  There is no control condition (i.e. all of the participants took place in the same experimental procedure)
• Link to research methods: What could the independent variable be considered to be?

  The prods provided by the experimenter for the participant to carry on.
• Link to research methods: What could the dependent variable be considered to be?

  The degree of obedience, i.e. how far up the shock scale the participant went.
• Link to research methods: Why it is perhaps more accurate to describe the method used as a type of controlled observation?


  The study collected both quantitative data in the way that it measured the amount of volts given and qualitative data in the way that Milgram observed the participants emotional responses and interviewed the participants after the study.
• Procedure: How many participants were there?


  40 men at a time who replied to an newspaper advert for a memeory exp.They were all 20-50 years old and ranged in jobs. Lots drawn for roles. They could leave at any time. The learner was strapped to a chair and wired with electrodes.

  The prompts from the experimenter created the independent variable and the dependent variable was how far in volts the participant would go in terms of volts to shock the learner.
• Procedure: Who were the two participants in each individual study?


  An experimenter, and a 47-year-old man introduced as another volunteer participant. The two drew lots to see who would act as the teacher and who would act as the learner, but this was rigged, so the participant was always the teacher and the confederate the learner.
• More procedure details?


  There is an experimenter, teacher and learner.

  The experimenter - has four prompts if the teacher is reluctant to continue.

  The teacher a naive participant had to read one half of a word pair and the learner supplies the other half. Once in a while the learner gets it wrong and gets a shock.

  The learner (a confererdate)is appearing to be ever more distressed while pretending to be shocked.
• Procedure: What did the teacher (experimenter) have to do?

  Test the learner on their ability to remember word pairs. Every time they got one wrong, the teacher had to administer increasingly strong electric shocks, from 15 volts to the maximum 450 volts in 15 volt increments. The teachers were not told that the shocks were fake that the learner Mr Wallace was an actor.

  At 300 volts (intense shock)the learner pounded the wall and gave no response to the next question. They wore grey lab coat to accent authority which increased obediency.
• Procedure: What did the 'learner' ( a confederate) have to do?


  sitting in another room gave mainly wrong answers and received his fake shocks in silence until they reached the 300 volt level (very strong shocks). At this point he pounded on the wall and then gave no response to the next question. He repeated this at 315 volts and from then on said/did nothing.
• Procedure: How was the teacher encouraged to continue?


  If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, the experimenter gave them a succession of verbal prods, in this order:

  
  

  1. Please continue.

  2. The experiment requires that you continue.

  3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.

  4. You have no other choice, you must go on.
• Procedure: When, and only when, was the study terminated?


  If the teacher still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.
• Results: What was the predicted outcome?


  Milgram asked 14 of his colleagues to predict how long participants (the teacher) would go before they refused to continue, very few predicted they would go beyond 150 volts and only 3% would administer the full 450 volts.
• Results: What was the actual outcome?


  65% of the teachers continued to the maximum 450 volts, despite the shock generator labelling 450 volts as 'danger'. Agentic shift. All participants went to 300 volts and 12.5% (14)stopped at at the point the learner first objected.(remining autonomous)

  - Teachers showed Signs of extreme tension - three had a seizure
• Conclusion ?


  People are suprisingly obedient to authority even when inflicting pain for no good reason
• Evaluate? Limitations? bad?

  INTERNAL VALIDITY

  Orne and Holland (1968) suggested participants predicted electric shocks were fake...so not testing obedience. However, Sheridan & King (1972) shocks to a puppy. 45 of males and 100% of females gave shocks that they believed were fatal. So maybe true...70% in Milgrams believed the shocks were genuine.

  Created an environment in which the participants believed to be true.

  ETHICS

  Baumrind (1964) criticised deception..believed roles randomly allocated but not and that shocks were real. Objected as a betrayal of trust. damages psychologists reputations. less likely to volunteer again.
• Evaluate Strenghts?


  EXTERNAL VALIDITY

  Milgram argued that the lab based relationship reflected real life relationships. Hofling et al (1966) found levels of obedience in nurses was high 21 out of 22. Therefore processes generalised.

  Informed consent

  The task did reflect real life obedience.
• Have replications of the study supported his findings?


  French reality TV show gave fake electric shocks when ordered to participants.

  80% gave the max 450 volts. Many participants like in Milgrams should signs of anxiety. Supports his finds about obedience to authority. Not just a one-off.
• Alternative explanation and evaluation ?


  Haslam and Reicher (2012)

  Use social identity to explain Milgram's findings. group identification occurs as the participants identify with the experimenter and the science behind it. They agree with the prompts 'Its important to continue' because they have bought into the group they have become part of. However, the last command'you have no other choice'produces refusal as there is no there rational although 26 obeyed.
• How has Gina Perry (2013) undermined the validity of Milgram's findings and conclusions?


  She analysised tape recordings and made several discoveries.

  - the 'experimenter' often went off script by varying the wording of the four prods and use them excessively, 26 times with one.

  - participants voiced their suspicions about the shocks. Perry concludes that most realised the shocks were fakes.
• REVISION BOOSTER


  Milgram is one of a trio of social influence researchers on the specification(Asche and Zimmbardo). So you could have to write about the research of anyone of them ......

  Alternatively, you might have to write about social influence then you can choose.