Milgram

• Aim - To investigate how far people would go in obeying an instruction given by an authority figure if it involved harming another person.
• procedure - · 40 volunteers are recruited. They were all white men from the ages of 20-50 in the New Haven area, USA

  · Participants are introduced to a fake participant (confederate)

  · They are given “Learner” and “Teacher” roles, it is rigged and the participant is always made the “Teacher”

  · The “Learner” has to learn a list of paired words. The “Teacher” is in a separate room and will test the “Learner” through a two-way microphone
• procedure - · If the “Learner” gets an answer wrong, the “Teacher” has to give an electric shock. The shock increases with each wrong answer. The shocks range from 15V to 450V.

  · An audio of the “Learner” screaming would be played to the “Teacher” after each shock, until eventually they would stop responding to the “Teacher”

  · A man wearing a lab coat (experimenter) would instruct the “Teacher” to continue to administer the electric shocks until they completed the task.
• · Whenever the participants wanted to stop the experiment, the experimenter used experimental prods:

  o Prod 1: Please continue.

  o Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.

  o Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.

  o Prod 4: You have no other choice but to continue.
• · The experiment ends when either the participant has administered the highest shock (450V) or kept protesting after the fourth prod given by the man in the lab coat.

  · Afterwards, the experimenter informs the participant that the “Learner” was never shocked.
• Findings –

  · All the participants continued up to deliver shocks up to 300V

  · 65% of participants delivered the maximum 450V shock

  · 14/40 participants showed nervous laughter and 3/40 participants had seizures
• Conclusion – Most people would harm others as long as they are being instructed by an authority figure. Obedience to authority is ingrained in most people
• A strength of Milgram’s study was the use of standardised procedures which increased the validity of the study. Milgram used the same set of words for the “learner” to recall, the same voltage and probes for each participant, they all heard the same recording of the learner screaming and asking for help and stopped hearing any response from the learner at the same voltage. This is a strength as the study can be replicated with females, other ages and different cultures to see whether they would show the same level of obedience helping us determine other factors that could affect obedience.
• A weakness of Milgram’s study is that there is a lack of protection of participants, where it is Milgram’s responsibility to make sure none of the participants are distressed beyond limits. He also did not give the participants a right to withdraw as he would use probes such as “the experiment requires you to continue” and “you must continue” causing the participants more distress.
• weakness - He also deceived his participants by telling them they were taking part in a ‘punishment and learning’ experiment and saying the shocks were real. However, the aim of the experiment required him to deceive the participants to produce valid results and made sure to debrief the participants of the true intentions of the experiment making sure they knew the shocks were not administered.
• telephonic instructions - aim: To see if proximity of the experimenter would affect obedience.
• telephonic instructions - procedure: After giving the first instructions, the experimenter leaves the rooms and communicates with the participant through a phone.
• telephonic instructions - findings: Level of obedience dropped to 22.5%.
• telephonic instructions - evaluation: Other studies also found a link between low proximity decreasing obedience, this demonstrates it is reliable. Sedikides and Jackson (1990) found in the NY Bronx zoo, the further away the authority figure is (zoo keeper), the less likely the guests were to obey their instructions to not lean on the railing. This shows Milgram’s findings on how proximity affects obedience also applies to realistic situations. However – Hofling (1968) shows that even with low proximity, obedience can still be very high
• rundown office - aim: To see whether legitimacy of environment would affect obedience.
• rundown office - procedure: instead of being set in Yale University, the experiment was set up in a less prestigious commercial building and run by an unknown organisation “Research Associates of Bridgeport”. The 3-room office suite was sparsely furnished.
• rundown office - findings: Level of obedience dropped to 48%.
• rundown office - evaluation: Milgram gathered more detailed data. Milgram collected not only quantitative but qualitative data in the form of audio recordings. The transcripts showed that the earlier in the procedure the participant challenged, the more likely they were to be fully defiant. This qualitative data means a deeper insight into different types of resistance.
• ordinary man - aim: To see whether legitimacy of authority would affect obedience.
• ordinary man - procedure: There was 1 learner, 1 experimenter, 1 recorder and 1 participant (teacher). The learner, experimenter and recorder were all confederates. The experimenter in a lab coat leaves the room and indicates that the experiment should continue. The recorder tells the participant (teacher) that they should increase the shock level every time the learner gets a wrong answer, even though the experimenter did not instruct this.
• ordinary man - findings: Level of obedience dropped to 20%
• ordinary man - evaluation: One strength of this study is other studies support the findings, so it has reliable. Sedikides and Jackson’s zoo study found when the experimenter wore a zoo keeper's uniform, complete with an official patch on the shirt, participants would follow their instructions more than when he wore a T-shirt, shorts, and sandals. This suggests that the participants decrease in obedience was due to the lesser authority the ordinary man has, showing a cause effect relationship between decreased authority and decreased obedience.