Social influence: key studies (milgram)

Question 1

What was the aim of milgrams study?

Answer 1

-to investigate if American citizens would obey beyond their morals

Question 2

what did milgrams study investigate in obedience?

Answer 2

.legitimacy of authority

Question 3

What was the sample of milgrams study?

Answer 3

-40 us male volunteers
-controlled observation
-1 participant (teacher)
-1 confederate (learner)

Question 4

What was the procedure of milgrams study?

Answer 4

-the learner was tested on word pairs
-teacher told to give increasing shocks if they made a mistake 15v-450v
-experimenter gives 4 prods if teacher becomes reluctant (eg:please continue)

Question 5

what are the variables affecting obedience?

Answer 5

.proximity of authority
.location
.uniform

Question 6

what were the 3 proximity variables?

Answer 6

.proximity 1 -learner in the same room as teacher obedience dropped to 40% because the teacher could see the pain the learner was suffering
.proximity 2 -teacher forces learner to put their hand on the shock plate -obedience dropped to 30%
.proximity 3 -orders given over the phone -obedience dropped to 21% because the legitimate authority figure wasn’t in close proximity so less pressure to obey

Question 7

what is meant by the variable location that affects obedience?

Answer 7

.when study moved to a run down office block compared to Yale university -obedience dropped from 65% to 48%

Question 8

what is meant by the variable uniform that affects obedience?

Answer 8

.when experimenter didn’t wear a white lab coat -obedience dropped to 20% because it removes the badge of authority

Question 9

What did the study find?

Answer 9

-100% participants stopped at 300v
-65% obeyed all the way to 450v
-after debrief 84% said happy to be part of the study

Question 10

What was a strength to this study?

Answer 10

-research was highly controlled (using the same learner and the same voice recordings increases replicability
-study was replicated (temporal validity) by burger 2009 (found similar results)

Question 11

What were some negatives to this study?

Answer 11

-lacks population validity (us males) although milgrams variations showed no gender difference
-perry reviewed the tapes and found that the
experimenter would often go off script giving more prods questions ethical issues and she suggested many thought shocks were fake compromising validity