Milgram's research Flashcards
What is conformity?
A change in behaviour or opinions as a result of real of imagined pressure from a person or group of people. (Asch’s and Zimbardo’s research).
What is obedience?
A form of social influence where an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when orders are not carried out. (Milgram’s research)
Context of Milgram’s experiment.
- Milgram wanted to know why Germans were willing to kill Jews during the Holocaust. He thought that it might have been because German’s were just evil.
- He thought that Americans were different and would not have followed such orders. To test this ‘German’s are different’ hypothesis, he carried out his study.
Milgram’s study: Procedure (prods included).
Wanted to see whether people would obey a legitimate authority figure when given instructions to harm another human being.
- Conducted lab experiment in which 2 p’s were assigned either role of teacher (given to true p) or learner (confederate).
- Teacher and learner were put into separate rooms. Teacher then asked by experimenter (‘authority figure’) to administer electric shocks to learner each time they gave wrong answer. Shocks increased every time learner gave wrong answer - 15-450 volts. (shocks were fake, but p didn’t know).
- Experimenters role was to give series of prods when p refused to administer a shock:
> Prod 1: Please continue.
> Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.
> Prod 3: It’s absolutely essential that you continue.
> Prod 4: You have no other choice to continue.
Milgram’s study: Results.
- All p’s went to at least 350 volts. 64% continued to full 450 volts.
- qualitative observations made reporting p’s showing signs of distress and tension (sweating, stuttering, trembling).
Milgram’s study: Conclusion.
- Under the right situational circumstances, ordinary people will obey unjust orders from someone perceived to be a legitimate authority figure.
- all p’ were debriefed and assured their behaviour was entirely normal. They were also sent a follow-up questionnaire: 84% reported that they felt glad to have participated.
Milgram’s study: ethical issues.
- Milgram was not breaking any official ethical guidance at the time because none existed. It was because of his research (and Zimbardo’s) that ethical issues became an urgent policy for psychology.
- However, it can still be argued this study had ethical issues: deception and protection from harm.
Does Milgram’s study have internal validity?
- Originally, Milgram’s study was criticised for lacking internal validity.
- Orne and Holland (1968) propose that many of the p’s went to higher voltages because they did not believe the shocks were real and they were not fooled by the experimenter set up. This means that Milgram may have not been testing what he intended to investigative.
- Milgram argued that at least 70% of the p’s did believe that the shocks were real.
Does the study have external validity?
Milgram argued that his research did have external validity, despite the criticism he received.
- Charles K. Hofling (1966) created a more realistic study of obedience than Milgram’s by carrying out field studies on nurses who were unaware they were in involved in an experiment.
Method: the procedure involved a field experiment involving 22 (real) night nurses. Dr. Smith (the researcher) phones the nurses at a psychiatric hospital (on night duty) and asks them to check the medicine cabinet to see if they have the drug astroten.
Limitation of Milgram’s study: Lacks ecological validity.
P: Lacks ecological validity.
E: Milgram conducted lab experiment which is very different to real life situation of obedience. In real life, we often obey more harmless instructions rather than giving people electric shocks.
C: Therefore, cannot generalise findings to real life situations of obedience and cannot conclude people would obey less severe instruction to the same degree.
CA: However, Milgram counters this claim, stating the lab can reflect wider authority relationships in real life situations. Hoffling et al (1996) found nurses were surprisingly obedient to unjustified instructions from a doctor in a hospital.
Limitation of Milgram’s research: ethical issues.
P: Broke several ethical issues.
E: Milgram deceived p’s as they believed they were taking part in study of how punishment affects learning, rather than on obedience.
C: Such breaches of ethical guidelines could serve to damage reputation of psychology and jeopardise future research.
I&D: Whilst p’s were all debriefed and interviewed after, where they stated they had suffered no long term effects, it could be argued Milgram’s research is socially sensitive as the results could be used to ensure people obey orders, even the ones they don’t want to.
Limitation of Milgram’s research: population validity.
P: Concerns his methodology as his study lacks population validity.
E: Milgram used biased sample of 40 male American volunteers from individualistic society.
C: Therefore, unable to generalise results to other populations, particularly collectivist cultured or explain behaviour of females.
I&D: Research deemed androcentric, as it was an all-male sample.
