Research into obidience Flashcards
(30 cards)
what is obedience?
A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order from a perceived authority figure. There is an implication that the person would not respond in this way without the order.
what was Milgram’s aim? (1963)
-wanted to investigate the power of an authority figure and find out if ordinary people obey to the demands of perceived legitimate authority figure even if the demands were morally wrong
what was Milgram’s procedure?
-Laboratory Experiment, yale, to see how punishment affects learning
-volunteer sample of 40 male aged 20-50,paid $4.50
-participant- teacher -2 confederates- learner(mr wallace) and experimenter(white lab coat)
-learner gave wrong answers and revived fake shocks 15-450v (15v increments)
-learner in diff room and cried out after each
-participant want to carry on the experimental would say prods please continue(foot in the door)
What were Milgram’s findings?
-all participants obeyed and gave shots up to at least 300 V
-12.5 of the participants stopped at 300v
-65% of participants continued all the way to 450v
what was Milgram’s conclusions?
-Ordinary people will obey authority, even though they know that what they are doing is wrong- so it isn’t just evil people who commit evil crimes, but ordinary people who are obeying orders
Who are the situation variables (external factor) that affect obedience?
Proximity
Location
Uniform- bickman investigated this
what are the explanations for obedience?
-Agentic state
-Legitimacy of authority
-Authoritarian personality- dispositional
What is proximity?
-physical closeness or distance of an authority figure to the person they are giving an order to
-In the original study, experimenter and teacher were in the same room
how did Milgram investigate proximity?
Reduced proximity- gave orders to the teacher via a telephone in a different room
how did reduce proximity affect obedience rates?
Dropped to 20.5% from baseline, 65.%
why did reduced proximity influence obedience
-participants are more likely to obey the authority figure in the original study as they were in the agentic state
-in this variation when the orders were given by the authority figure file the phone, the participants were in the autonomous state (less likely to obey)
what does the location do?
-The location or setting of a situation or environment can affect the way a request is viewed, and therefore the likelihood of obedience
-og was conducted at Yale University (high status)
How did milligram investigate location?
repeated the study in a rundown office block
how did the location affect obedience rates?
dropped to 48% from 65(baseline)
why did location influence obedience?
-Location of original experiment adds to the legitimacy of authority figure giving the order
-Several participants remarked, that the location of the study gave them confidence in the integrity of the people involved
-When repeated- fewer people obey the instructions given to them as they did not valued experiment with the same integrity as they did at Yale (credible)
What is uniform?
Clothing, worn by an authority figure can affect the perception of person has of them and would change whether or not they would obey
how did bickman (1974) investigate uniform?
-carried out field experiment in New York, passers-by given one of three orders: pick up paper bag, lend money to stranger for a parking meter, stand at another place at bus stop
-one condition experimenter dressed as security guard.
-another, wore normal clothes
how did uniform affect obedient rates?
SG- 82% obeyed request to lend money
NC- 36% obeyed
Why did uniform influence obedience?
-easily recognisable and convey power and authority, they offer a sense of legitimacy to those who wear them
why did Orne and Holland criticise Milgram’s research into situational variables affecting obedience and claim that participants were going along with the act when they shocked the learner?
- ppts did not believe and weren’t distressed
-pretending, to please learner (demand characteristics)
why would orne and Hollands criticism question the internal validity of the research?
because milgram is measuring how the participants play along with the requests, rather than measuring the effects of situational variables directly (obedience to authority)
why did Milgram dispute the claims made by orne and holland?
- He provided evidence: from debriefing session (of participants who admitted, they had believed they were giving shocks)
-through film evidence where participants appeared in considerable distress when delivering the shocks
CANT FAKE QUALITATIVE DATA
why is there low external validity (ecological) in Milgram’s research into situational variables?
Ecological: highly controlled lab experiments-
baumrind suggested: impossible to generalise his findings to real life because the study was carried out at yale uni (ivy league) and the conc can only be about obedience to a researcher in a laboratory
why is there low external validity (population) in Milgram’s research into situational variables?
-Study used paid male, volunteers and in psych it is know that volunteers, are not representative of the population
-Gender differences- between how males and females respond to authority e.g. women= more obedient in 1960s
-individual differences limited
