Obedience

• define obedience


  a type of social influence where an individual complies with or follows a direct order usually from a figure of authority
• Why did Milgram want to study obedience?

  to understand how the Germans followed Hitlers orders and acted in the Holocaust in the Second World War - he wanted to see if Germans were more obedient
• briefly outline the procedure of milgrams study

  -Took 40 male American volunteers. He then split the group into learners and teachers.

  -Teachers then asked the learner a series of questions and each time the learner got a question wrong the teacher would deliver them a shock in 15V increments .

  -They were encouraged to continue by an experimenter who was in the same room as the teacher

  -He wore a white lab coat. ppt were paid to take part in the study
• what were the results of milgrams study?

  Quantitative data= 65% of participants delivered the fatal shock of 450 v

  3 ppt had uncontrolled seizures

  no ppt stopped before 300 v

  12.5% ppt stopped at 300 v

  when ppt wanted to stop the examiner used prompts to continue to the teacher

  Qualitative data= ppt showed signs of being under extreme stress- sweating profusely, stutter, bite nails/ lips, groaning and fits of nervous laughter
• what percentage of ppt were glad to have taken part in the study

  after fully debriefed, 84% of ppt said that they were glad to have participated
• what did milgram conclude about the study?

  when ordered to do something for a figure of authority we obey as they are higher up in the social heirarchy he then came up with three factors that affect obedience=LOCATION, UNIFORM, PROXIMITY
• what is GRAVE


  Generalisability= sample size representative of the target population?

  Reliability= how easy would it be to repeat ?

  Application= can the findings be applied to real life and what implications does this have for the real world

  Validity= does the study have external validity? internal external or temporal was it a child of its time?

  Ethics= is the study ethical? informed consent protection from harm deception privacy and confidentiality
• how generalisable was milgrams study?

  the study used 40 american males- not a large enough sample size less representative of the target population

  only used men so findings cannot be applied to women and need to use a wider age range
• how replicable is milgrams study?

  it was a lab study so the procedure has been standardised this mean that the test would be able to be replicated and find the same results

  sheridan + king 1972 real shocks were delivered to a puppy 54% male and 100% female obedience rates
• what implications has this study got for society? - application

  how likely people are to obey destructive orders from people of authority and how this can be applied to people in authority and high positions of the social heirarchy to stop them from abusing their authority powers
• evaluate the validity of milgrams study

  sheridan and king replicated the study and found 54% males and 100% females conformity this shows good internal validity

  -Hofling et al replicated the study and found that nurses on a ward and when ordered by a doctor to administer a dangerous dose of a drug 21/22 nurses obeyed found good external validity

  -Suggests that Milgram's study showed good internal validity due to a high levels of conformity
• what ethical issues are present with milgrams research

  -participants were deceived as they were lead to believe that they were harming the learner caused 3 of them to have a seizure

  -participants were not protected from harm as they were told that they were harming another and that lead to people have strokes caused psychological harm
• what are the three situational factors affecting obedience that milgram investigated

  Proximity- the experimenter was in the same room as the teacher

  Uniform- the experimenter wore a white lab coat that symbolised his authority

  Location- took place in yale university so the location was legitimate
• what were the three variations of proximity in milgrams study and how did obedience change

  1- was in the same room as the teacher- obedience increased

  2- left the room during the experiment - decreased

  3- was on the telephone instead of being physically there- obedience stayed the same
• how did milgram vary the location? how did the obedience change ?

  held the experiment in yale university and then replicated the study but in an abandoned building

  obedience increased at yale because the location was more professional and legitimate made the study seem more official
• how did milgram vary uniform the study? how did the obedience change?

  in one study he wore a lab coat and on the other he wore a normal clothes which made obedience decrease as he didn't look the part and wasn't legitimate
• how has milgrams study been replicated in other cultures ? why is this an important strength?

  meesus and raaijmakers 1986 used a more realistic procedure to study obedience in dutch ppt which involved saying very stressful things in a job interview to confederates they thought were desparate fro a job 90% were obedient as it is shown that it is repeatable in other cultures and has similar results suggests findings from orginal research may be generalisable to other cultures which increases the value of the research .
• why might milgrams study lack internal validity? how is this a limitation of situational variables affect obedience


  orne and holland 1968- critised milgrams orginal study for being fake as the situational variables were exaggerated which made the study less believable E.G the uniform condition where experimenter is replaced by a 'member of the public' this makes scenario unlikely and increases likelihood of ppt guessing true aim of study. limitation if ppt guess true aim of the study, demand characteristics take place reduces internal validity and means less confident in effect observed is true limits the usefulness of contribution to social influence.
• how can you counter criticise the research conducted in other cultures for the situational variables? why is this a limitation of milgrams explanation

  most of the replications have been taken place in cultures very similar to america such as the netherlands scotland and australia bond and smith conducted a meta analysis and found that between 1968 and 1985 only two replications were conducted in culture that are seen as quite differenet to america- india limitation suggests that oly true for certain cultures most replications have been on individualist cultures but evidence has shown that collectivist culture can be different like china limited generalisability reduces usefulness
• how is milgrams research socially sensitive why might this be a limitation

  doesnt take into consideration collectivist culture and situational variables within his orginal study were exaggerated meaning the validity was low and hard to generalise to a wider target population
• define agentic state


  we dont feel personally responsible for our behaviour and powerless to change it even when we want to because of binding factors
• define autonomous state


  we are independent and have control over our actions
• what is the agentic shift


  when given and order from an authority figure we make an agentic shift and act as an agent for them
• what are binding factors

  thay make us feel morally strained or anxious like the prompts in milgrams study from the researcher to continue