AO3 - Milgram experiment

• A strength of Milgram's experiment is that it was a lab study which gives it more control over extraneous variables
• One strength of Milgram's experiment being a lab study is that he can more easily establish a cause and effect relationship between changing variables and obedience levels
• One weakness of Milgram's study is demand characteristics, the participants may not have believed that the shocks they were giving were real and may be going along to please the experimenter
• A counterpoint to Milgram's study having demand characteristics is that participants felt guilty and upset when giving shocks, they sweated, protested and had strong emotional reactions.
• One criticism of Milgram's study is that it lacks ecological validity, it is unlikely to occur in real life and is an unfamiliar situation which may cause the participants to behave differently
• Milgram only recruited young white American males (androcentric bias), can't be generalised to the population (lacks population validity).
• Milgram's experiment is unethical
• One strength is Milgram's research supports the agentic state

  • when questioned, the experimenter accepts responsibility for any harm to the learner
  • the scientist in the (uniform) lab coat, has a legitimate authority in the location of Yale University
  • the manipulation of these variables supports Milgram's conclusions that agentic state and legitimacy of authority do influence obedience
• One limitation is Milgram's research is a limited explanation to obedience

  • 35% resisted the authority figure suggesting situational factors agentic state and legitimacy of authority are not a full explanation of obedience
  • dispositional explanations authoritarian personality and locus of control likely play a role
  • reductionist / over simplifies what factors influence obedience