Obedience: Milgram's Variation Studies Flashcards
Situational Factors
Features of the immediate physical and social environment which may influence a person’s behaviour.
Experiment 10: Run down office block
Results showed that 47.5% of participants were fully obedient.
Transcripts showed that participants voiced their doubts about the legitimacy of the research and fears for learners safety.
The shabby setting reduced legitimacy of researcher, but the link to ‘scientific’ research seemed to encourage obedience.
Experiment 7: Telephonic Instructions
Experimenter gave orders over the phone. Only 22.5% were fully obedient.
PP lied on the phone saying they raised the shock level when they didn’t.
PP seemed to find it easier to resist authority. When researcher came back into the room, defiant PP became obedient.
Physical presence of authority figure appears to be an important situational factor that increases obedience and reduces dissent.
Experiment 13: Ordinary Man
PP arrives with 2 confederates. One is a learner and one records times from a clock.
Experimenter receives a fake phone call calling him away and the recorder enthusiastically says to increase shocks by 15v each mistake.
80% of participants refused to continue with ordinary man orders. Shows that orders must come from a legitimate source to be effective, and an important situational factor.
Strength of 10
Collected qualitative and quantitative data in form of audio recordings of dialogue.
A re-analysis of the interview transcripts of 36/40 PP found that the earlier in the procedure the PP challenged the experimenter, the more likely they were to be fully defiant.
This qualitative data allowed a deeper insight into types of resistance.
Strength of 7
Research has replicated the findings, high external validity.
Research in other experiments demonstrates that when an authority figure is no longer present, obedience drops sig.
Shows that Milgram’s results on physical proximity generalise well to other naturalistic situations.
Weakness of 13
Lacks internal validity.
Withdrawal of the experimenter from the lab was awkward.
There were many cases of derived authority as it was the experimenter who had initially described the study and shocks.
Suggests obedience may be even lower in situations where the person giving orders is completely unrelated to any authority figure or institutional context.
