Obedience- Milgram's Research Flashcards
What is Milgram’s research about?
He designed a baseline procedure that could be used to asses obedience levels
What is the baseline procedure?
40 American men volunteered to take part in a study at Yale University in the USA, supposedly on memory.
When each volunteer arrived at Milgram’s lab he was introduced to another participant (who was actually a confederate of Milgram’s )
They drew lots to see who would be the Teacher and who would be the learners.
The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the Teacher. An experimenter was also involved (he was also a confederate, dressed in a grey lab coat)
How was the baseline procedure arranged?
The Teacher could not see the Learner but could hear him. The Teacher had to give the Learner a electric shock every time the Learner made a mistake on a memory task. The shocks increased with each mistake in 15 volt steps up to 450 volts. In fact the shocks were fake but labelled to suggest they were increasingly dangerous.
What where the baseline findings ?
Every participant delivered all the shocks up to 300 volts. 12.5% ( 5 participants) stopped at 300 volts ( ‘intense shock’) and 65% continued to the highest level of 450 volts i.e. they were fully obedient.
Milgram also collected qualitative data including observations such as: the participants showed signs of extreme tension; many of them were seen to sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan and dig their finger nails into their hands; three even full-blown uncontrollable seizers.
What was the other data?
Before the study Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants behaviour. The students estimated that no more than 3% of the participants would continue to 450 volts. This shows that the findings were unexpected- the students underestimated how obedient people actually are. All participants in the baseline study were debriefed and assured that their behaviour was entirely normal. They were also sent a follow up questionnaire- 84% said they were glad to have participated.
What was the conclusion?
Milgram concluded that German people are not different. The American participants in his study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person. He suspected there were certain factors in the situation that encouraged obedience, so decided to conduct further studies to investigate these.
Why is research support a strength?
One strength is that Milgram’s findings were replicated in a French documentary that was made about reality TV. This documentary focused on a game show made especially for the programme. The participants in the game believed they were contestants in a piolet episode for a new show. They were paid to give fake electric shocks, ordered by the presented to other participants, who are actually actors in front of a studio audience. 80% of the participants delivered maximum shock of 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man. Their behaviour was almost identical to that Milgram’s participants. This supports Milgram’s original findings about obedience to authority and demonstrates that the findings were not just due to special circumstances.
Why is low internal validity a limitation?
One limitation is that Milgram’s procedure may not have been testing what he intended to test. Milgram reported that 75% of his participants said they believed the shocks were genuine. However Orne and Holland argued that participants behaved as they did because they didn’t really believe in the set up so they were play acting. Perry’s research confirms this. She listened to tapes of Milgram’s participants and reported that only about half of them believed the shock were real. Two thirds of these participants were disobedient. This suggests that participants may have been responding to demand characteristics, trying to fulfil the aims of the study.
Why is alternative interpretation of findings a limitation?
Another limitation is that Milgram’s conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified. A psychologist showed that Milgram’s participants obeyed when the Experimenter delivered the first 3 verbal prods ( you have no other choice you must go on) without expectation disobeyed. According to the social identity theory participants in Milgram’s study only obeyed when they identified with the scientific aims of the research ( the experimenter requires that you continue) When they were ordered to blindly obey an authority figure they refused. This shows us that SIT may provide a more valid interpretation of Milgram’s findings especially as Milgram himself suggested that ‘ identity with the science’ is a reason for obedience.
