social influence - Milgram

Question 1

what is obedience

Answer 1

• individual follow a direct order
• person issuing the order has authority

Question 2

when did Milgram conduct his study

Answer 2

1963

Question 3

what was Milgram’s procedure

Answer 3

• 40 American men voluntered for a study at Yale based on memory
• each volunteer introduced to a confederate who acted as the experiementer
• draw was rigged so the teacher would always be the participant and learner a confederate
• room had a shock generator
• teacher had to test the learner on their recall on word pairs
• if the answer was incorrect the teacher would administer an electric shock
• pre-recorded screams as the shocks increased
• experimenter had 4 verbal prods

Question 4

what were the findings of Milgrims experiment

Answer 4

• 14 participants had nervous laughing fits
• all participants delivered shocks up to 300v
• 12.5% stopped at 300v
• 65% continued until 450v
• 35% resisted pressure and backed out between 300-450v
• sent a questionnaire later on and 84% were glad to have taken part

Question 5

what did Milgram conclude and aimed

Answer 5

• investigate if the Nazis were just simply following orders
• German people aren’t different
• participants were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person

Question 6

GRAVE Evaluation

Answer 6

Generalisability
- only used white male American participants
- used a volunteer sample
- low ecological validity - carried out in a lab

Reliability
- replicated his own study using variables
- Hofling et al
- Bickman

Application
- explain the holocaust
- Abu Ghraib

Validity
- lacked experimental realism - pps may have not found it real
- demand characteristics
- lacked mundane realism - didn’t resemble real life

Ethics
- failed to gain informed consent
- coerced participants into continuing
- difficult to withdraw
- asked psychological community to predict the findings of the study
- psychological harm - full debriefing and questionnaire