obedience

Question 1

what are the strengths of Milgram’s experiment?

Answer 1

• supporting evidence - Sheridan and King conducted a study like Milgram’s, participants gave real shocks to a puppy under orders, 54% of the men and 100% of women gave what they thought was a fatal shock - shows that effect of Milgram’s study were genuine
• however, debriefing - participants were thoroughly debriefed on the real aims of the study to deal with the ethical breach of the guideline of protection from deception and the possibility to give informed consent, follow up study showed that 84% were glad they were part of study - suggests study left little or no long term psychological harm on participants

Question 2

what are the weaknesses of Milgram’s experiment?

Answer 2

• psychological harm inflicted upon the participants - showed signs of distress with many trembling, sweating and nervous laughter and even a few having seizures, may be due to deception as part of the study as informed consent couldn’t be obtained
• low internal validity - Milgram’s method may have not been testing what he intended to test, participants didn’t believe in set up so they were just ‘play-acting’, responding to demand characteristics to fulfil aims of the study

Question 3

what are the strengths of situational variables?

Answer 3

• research support - Bickman - field experiment in New York where 3 confederates in a jacket and tie, milkman’s outfit and security guard uniform, they asked passerbys to perform tasks like picking up litter, people were twice as a likely to obey if they were in uniform, shows how uniform is a symbol of authority and high status so more likely to obey
• Milgram’s findings replicated in other cultures and in a more realistic setting - participants were ordered to say stressful things in an interview to someone desperate for a job and 90% obeyed - then replicated the proximity factor and when person giving orders wasn’t present, obedience rates decreased massively

Question 4

what are the weaknesses of situational variables?

Answer 4

• low internal validity - participants may be aware procedure was faked as with the additional variables, there was more manipulation eg. when the Experimenter was replaced, participants have just seen through the deception and gone along with the study
• replications of Milgram’s research into situational variables are not very cross-cultural, only 2 replications have been done in collectivist cultures so may not be appropriate to conclude that Milgram’s findings apply to people in most or all cultures

Question 5

what are the strengths of situational explanations?

Answer 5

• Milgram’s studies support the agentic state, when participants asked who was responsible for harm caused to the Learner the Experimenter would say themself and participants often went through with the procedure
• shows that once participants were no longer responsible for the harm caused, they obeyed easily as Milgram suggested
• legitimacy of authority is a useful account of cultural differences in obedience as many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are obedient to authority, an Australian study showed only 16% went up to 450 volts compared to the high obedience rates in the original American study, reflects the way that different societies may perceive authority figures

Question 6

what are the weaknesses of situational explanations?

Answer 6

• doesn’t explain many research findings about obedience - found that 16 out of 18 nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to give an excessive dose even though the doctor was an authority figure, the nurses remained autonomous like many of Milgram’s participants - can only account for some situations
• legitimacy of authority cannot explain instances of disobedience as most of the nurses in the study were disobedient despite working in a hierarchal authority structure, also a significant minority of Milgram’s participants disobeyed orders despite recognising the Experimenter’s scientific authority, suggests that some people may just be more or less obedient than others, other factors that may have a greater influence on behaviour than legitimacy of authority

Question 7

what are the strengths of dispositional explanation?

Answer 7

• research support - Milgram interviewed people in original studies and who were fully obedient, 20 obedient participants scored higher on F-scale than comparison disobedient group, these 2 groups were clearly different in terms of authoritarianism, supports Adorno’s view that obedient people may well show similar characteristics to people who have an Authoritarian Personality

Question 8

what are the weaknesses of dispositional explanation?

Answer 8

• cannot explain obedience in the majority of a population - millions displayed obedient behaviour in pre-war Germany when Adorno created the Authoritarian Personality, extremely unlikely that all of them possessed an Authoritarian Personality
• could be situational factors that could have an influence on obedient behaviour instead like legitimacy of authority