WEAKNESSES

• WEAKNESSES OF MILGRAM'S RESEARCH?

  • generalisability
  • ecological validity
• GENERALISABILITY ARGUMENT?

  • methodological criticisms (sample not representative of whole population - 40 men used)
  • volunteer sampling
  • participants may have similar personality type (Authoritarian Personality)
  • dispositional factors at play, conclusions about situational variables may be flawed
• COUNTERARGUMENT FOR GENERALISABILITY?

  variations, using women had similar obedience rates
• ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY ARGUMENT?

  • lack of mundane realism
  • not reflective of obedience in everyday life
• COUNTERARGUMENT FOR ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY?

  • naturalistic studies repeated findings
  • Hofling et al found 95% obeyed doctor
  • therefore the results are reliable despite their high artificiality and have ecological validity
• BALANCING ARGUMENT OF ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY?

  • Hofling's situation was still unrealistic due to the unknown doctor
  • Rank and Jacobson repeated the procedure with higher realism
  • obedience dropped to 11%
  • therefore Milgram's results do not accurately represent obedience in real life