Burger Flashcards
(25 cards)
What was the aim of burgers study?
To conduct a partial replication of milgrams studies to check whether findings were era bound
To enable useful. Comparisons with the original
How was this advertised?
Through advertisements and flyers in a local newspaper and local establishments in which participants responded to. The advert promised 50 US dollars for taking part in two 45 minute sessions. Individuals expressed their interest through a text message or phone call.
What was the first screening process?
How many participants were excluded after this?
The individuals receives a phone call from a research assistant and asked if they had been to college and if they answered yes they would get asked if they studied psychology. They rejected individuals who said yes to having 2 or more psychology lessons as they could have been familiar with milgrams studies.
The remaining participants were asked about their physical and psychological health and whether they had suffered any traumatic childhood experiences.
A further 30% of participants were excluded from further involvement in the study.
6 people;es deselected themselves, 5 knew about the study and 1 didnt want to carry on.
What was the second part of the screening process?
This was led by two clinical psychologists and held at Santa Clara university campus. It required individuals to complete a number of scales/questionnaires: a demographics sheet asking about age, occupation, education and ethnicity
Becks depression and anxiety questionnaires
Also I a 30 minute interview with the psychologist to see which individuals may be affected by the study. Interview was structures about the MINI procedure which touches on psychological disorders.
47 people were removed at this stage.
What was the ending sample of this study including the sampling technique?
Volunteer sampling from ads in a local newspaper and an online listing service.
70 adults (29 men 41 women)
Ages 20-81 years
60% had uni degrees
55% white, 4% black Afro-American
Two hypothesis of this study?
Would obedience be lower aas people are more aware nowadays of the. Damages of blindly following sauthority?
Burger predicted that “strong situational factors” will bring out high levels of obedience even in 2009
Could there be a difference in obedience between gender?
Burger thought that males and females would return very similar findings as in the original Milgram study.
Blass (2000) review paper had found no evidence of a gender different in 8/9 replications of Milgram studies.
What were some difference in procedures between Milgram and burger and why?
In milgrams study the shocks went up to 450v but in burgers he terminated the trials after 150v
He carefully analysed milgrams data: 150V was ‘point of no return’ for 75% who then went up to 450, burger decided to cut them of at 150 so they couldn’t suffer too much stress.
It was estimated that 79% of participants would have gone all the way.
How could personality affect results?
Burger predicted that those who are more empathetic should administer lower shocks and participants with a higher desire for personal control would administer lower shocks.
Situational factors
Burger thought that if participants observed another person who refucsed to shocks the learner, this might provide them with useful information about what participants are supposed to do in the setting.
He predicted that participants might use this behaviour to guide them and therefore show lower levels of obedience as Milgram had seen in this 1965 variation.
What are 5 ethical safeguards to prevent psychological problems
Two steep screening process to exclude anyojme who might have a negative rfeaxtion to the experience.
At least 3 reminders (2 in writing) that participants would withdraw from the study any time and still reviewed rtheir 50 dollars for participation.
A 15 volt shock used to convince participants that the shock generator was real.
An almost immedient debrief where participants were told that’s they had not given any real shocks to ; the learner and where participants meet the actor to emnsure rthgem that he was fine.
A clinical psychologist is present at all times and told to end the study immediately if any signs of excessive stress was seen.
Baseline condition experiment- what happened before the experiment started?
Participants were split into groups in an attempt to keep equal ratios of gender in each group.
Participant introduced to experimenter and the confederate.
Experimenter and confederate chosen as they looked similar to milgrams study.
Participant ands confederate given 50 and chose to keep it even if they choose to withdraw.
Burger used a similar script to milgrams original study.
Choose was also rigged and confederate always recieved the role of learner and participant would have the teacher, similar to milgrams.
Both asked to sign consent forms.
Baseline condition-how was the experiment set up
Like milgrams study, the learner was put into the odjooning room while the reacher was placed before an electric generator.
The teacher was asked to join the experiment,enter while he prepared the learner for the study.
Participant witnessed experimenter plating an electrode onto the learners left wrist, sealing it with paste and explaining that it would ‘provide good contact to prevent blisters or burns’
Baseline condition- how did this work?
What was said during this?
Followed milgrams procedure and asked the teacher to read out a list of 25 word pairs.
The teacher was told that’s if the learner failed to remember word pair an electric shock would be administered using the electric generator. Confederate revealed that he has a problem with his heart that was detected at a hospital visit.
Learner shown how to use electric shock and given a 15v sample shock.
Same four verbal prods from Milgram study used and pre recorded voice grunts from learner were heard from 75V .
150V the recording started tio tell them to get me out as the heart condition was bothering them.
What happened after 150V in The baseline condition?
After the experimenter used verbal periods if the reacher was resistant to continuing, the experiment was ended.
The experiment also forcibly ended at the point where the reacher read out the next instruction following the administering of the 150 shock.
On finishing the experiment the experimenter immediately admitted to the teacher that the shocks were not real and the teacher was introduced to the learner to ensure that they knew he was perfectly fine.
What happened in the modelled refusal condition?
All participants followed the same procedure as the. Baseline condition but with a few minor exceptions.
Two confederates were used instead of one. The second confederate posed as a participants and was the same gender as the real participant.
Drawing of the roles were rigged and resulted in a learner and teacher 1 (confederates) and teacher 2 (real participant).
Teacher 1 took the lead and began the procedure asking the questions and administering shocks while teacher 2 sat with them.
At 75 volts teacher one had to hesitate after hearing the learner grunt and at 90 volts the teacher 1 stated that he didn’t know if it was a good idea, theywas prompted by the experimenter but refused to carry on and pushed their chair back.
Experimenter would them ask teacher 2, the real participant, to continue.
Results in experiment one and two
In experiment 1, baseline condition, 70% of participants had to be stopped before attempting to continue past 150 volts; a rate that is just lower than milgrams 82.5%
In experiment 2, modelled refusal condition , 63.3% went to continue the procedure after 150 volts despite expectations held by burger and the confederate who withdrew. Results were very similar to baseline condition.
What were the results involving gender, empathy, desirability for control and personality?
There was little difference in opbedience ;levels between genders in both experimenters. The point at which male and female participants needed the first prod was also similar.
With the screening tests of the participants relating to issues of empathy and control burger found a little difference between those who stopped and those who continued and their corresponding empathy and control scores.
Burger found that those who showed reluctance to five the shocks early on in the procedure scored higher on the desirability for control in the baseline condition.
No difference was found between both conditions in terms of personality.
Conclusion
Results found in both experimenters are similar to milgrams research found over 45 years ago.
Time and changes in society’s culture did not have an effect on obedience levels nor did the refusal of the confederate.
Generalisation
High as burger used both males and females
29 men 41 females
As there was two genders used thus means that it should represent obedience more broadly increasing external validity
Reliability
High internal reliability
Confederate would always make noise st the 75 volt shock level for all participants and all participants a were given a 15 volt shock
Increases internal reliability was all participants would have been placed in the same setting to demonstrate obedience so the researchers were more consistently reassuring what they aimed to
Applications
Offers useful application that could be used to help in schools
Showed similar results to Milgram in that people will obey orders from an authority figure when asked to do a task causing moral strain
This would be used within school to increase obedience towards treachery or used in public setting to increase the obedience
Validity
Low ecological validity
Like milgrams original study it it’s completely unrealistic to give electric shocks to individuals fore getti8ng an answer incorrect, they were also being recorded.
This may not reflect actual obedience that participants would show if someone gave them an order in the real world so also lowers validity.
Ethics
Despite ethical safeguards it would still cause distress
Participantswere still asked to five elecreric shocks to a ‘learner’ even with a clinical psychologist present, this would still csayxse a degree of distress.
Shows that it still has issues with ethics.
Two step screening process ensures that anyone who was vulnerable would be excluded from the experiment
