milgrams research on obedience Flashcards
(5 cards)
describe the procedure of milgrams research on obedience
40 american men drew lots to see who would be teacher and learner.
Lots were predetermined - ppts would always get teacher - making confederate the learner. A confederate was the experimenter who instructed / adminstered the strength of the electric shock on the learner.
Teacher gave electric shock for every mistake on a memory task.
This was up to 450 volts, 15 volt step up. labeled dangerous.
Findings of milgrams research
all ppts delveried up to 300 volts. 12.5% stopped at 300
65% continued to the highest of 450 volts.
Ppts showed signs of siezures, distress, lip biting
ao3: unethical
-milgrams experiment broke ethical guidelines
-He used deception - roles of ppts were already predetremined to always be the teacher.
-Milgrams didnt protect ppts from psychological harm - ppts showed distress, seizures thinking they were harming someone else. 35% withdrew
However he sent a follow up questionaire - 84% glad they took part. deception was neccessary or participant may have guessed - this was later solved with a debriefing at the end of the experiment.
Benefits may have outweighted the costs.
ao3: lab experiment
(counter - low internal validity)
highly controlled experiment in a lab at yale uni.
Good control of extraneous varibles/got rid of them. Allow us to establish cause % effect relationships of what effected obedience. - scientific credibility
However ppts who took part had volunteerer. - so they knew they were taking part in a study and knew the electric shocks were fake. -This may have led to demand characterisitics as ppts may have been play acting to impress researcher.
Suffers from low internal validity.
ao3: lacked population validity
milgrams used a biased sample of 40 american men. - INDIVIDUALISTIC SOCIETY. There may be something about men that make them more obedient.
This means we are unable to generalise findings of the experiment to other populations, particulalry collectivist cultures and females. It may be the case, shown by some research, that females and people in collectivist cultures may be more obedient. Therefore, its unlikely that his research is applicable to a range of people.
