Milgram

• Investigates how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. [Milgram]
• Involves 40 20-50 year old male volunteers. They were told they were taking part in a memory test. [Milgram]
• There were two roles, teacher and student.

  Teacher - participant, administers “shocks” when the student gets something wrong.

  Student - confederate, participating and receiving “shocks“ when getting a wrong answer. [Milgram]
• Participant and confederate drew straws for their roles, however it was rigged and the participant would always receive the teacher role. [Milgram]
• The confederate was issued shocks +15v every time they got an answer wrong. The meter went up to 450v. However these volts were fake. [Milgram]
• 100% of participants continued up to 300v, and 65% continued up to 450v, the final voltage. [Milgram]
• Ordinary people are very obedient to authority. Atrocities are carried out by normal people obeying orders. [Milgram]
• It may be situational factors affecting obedience, not dispositional factors. [Milgram]
• Milgram’s Variations - proximity, location, power of uniform.
• proximity: when the teacher and student were in the same room, obedience fell to 40%.

  When the teacher had to force student‘s hands onto the electric plate to administer the shock, obedience fell to 30%.
• location: the original study took place in Yale University. Some participants said that the “prestigious“ location influenced them. Milgram then carried out the same experiment in a run down office, where obedience dropped to 48%. Slight but insignificant drop.
• There were ethical issues in Milgrams study.

  Deception - participants were not aware that the students were confederates. They believed they were harming someone.

  Protection from Harm - Psychological harm to ppts, they felt guilty for shocking the student.

  Right to Withdraw - participants felt that they could not withdraw because of the use of prompts.
• Milgram’s study contained a biased sample.

  The study was androcentric, only men were involved.

  Milgram also self selected ppts, meaning the study may not be representative of the American population.
• Milgrams study may have had low internal validity. Orne and Holland (1968)

  The participants may have not believed the experiment set up and might have known that the student was not actually receiving electric shocks. Perry (2013) listened to Milgram’s tapes and reported that many ppts expressed doubts about the shocks.
• Milgrams study has support from other research. In 2010 a French study replicated Milgrams research. 80% of participants went to 460v (maximum) to an “unconscious” man. This shows support for Milgrams research and claims. This also shows that the research findings are not only relevant in the UK.