Milgram Flashcards
(47 cards)
When was Nazi Germany slaughtering people?
1933-1945
What was happening in Germany 1933-1945?
Millions of innocent people were being systematically slaughtered on command
What was Milgrams aim?
To investigate obedience by testing how far an individual will go in obeying an authority figure
Why was Milgram so interested in the obedience in Nazi Germany?
His family were Jewish and so if they had been in parts of Europe at that time they would have been slaughtered
What were the expectations for Milgrams study from Milgram, other professionals and the public for the study?
1-2% of participants would go to the maximum shock levels, the rest would drop out early
What gender were Milgrams participants?
Male
What age were Milgrams participants?
20-50
Where were Milgrams participants from?
New Haven and surrounding communities
What jobs did Milgram want his participants to have?
Any job
Why did Milgram want to study this group of participants?
These are the people that would have been drafted into war at the time
What were Milgrams participants offered to take part in the study?
$4.50 that they got just for showing up, they didn’t need to actually complete the study to get it
How were Milgrams participants gathered?
Newspaper advertisements and direct mailing
Where was Milgrams study conducted?
Yale university
Was the experimenter in Milgrams study real?
No, the participants met an actor
What was the first step of Milgrams experiment?
The naïve participant and victim drew slips of paper to decide who was the learner (the draw was rigged so the naïve participant was always the teacher)
Where were Milgrams participants taken initially and what happened there? (3)
~An adjacent room where the learner was strapped to an “electric chair”
~An electrode was attached to participants wrist which participants were told was attached to an electric shock generator in another room
~Experimenter declared that although the shocks can be extremely painful they cause no permanent tissue damage
What was the “learning task” in Milgrams experiment? (3)
~The teacher read a series of word pairs to the learner and then read the first word of the pair along with four terms
~The learner had to indicate which of the four words was in the word pair
~He communicated his answer by pressing one of four switches which lit up one of four areas in an answer box on top of the electric shock generator
What was Milgrams shock generator like?(3)
~It was designed to look as authentic as possible
~There were 30 switches 15-450V increasing by 15V each time
~Warnings were assigned to each group of four switches from slight shock to danger:servers shock and then XXX
What was Milgrams participant given and why?
Before beginning being a teacher each naive participant was given a sample shock to the wrist of 45V to convince the participant of the authenticity of the generator
What was Milgrams teacher instructed to do?
Administer a shock to the learner each time he gave an incorrect answer
The shocks had to increase by a level each time and announce the voltage level before doing so
Why did Milgrams teacher have to announce the voltage level before administering the shock?
To remind the teacher of the increasing intensity of the shocks he was giving
What was the schedule of answers from Milgram’s learner?
3 wrong answers to 1 correct answer
What happened after the 300V shock was administered?
Learner kicked the wall then gave no answer to the next word pair
What happened after the 315V was administered?
The learner kicked the wall again and then gave no further feedback or response
