SOCIAL INFLUENCE ( SITUATIONAL VARIABLES)

Question 1

Outline Milgram’s study into obedience and the findings

Answer 1

PROCEDURE :
The study involved 40 ppts who were told it was a study of how punishment affects learning. There we two confederates an experimenter and a ‘participant’. The two ppts drew lots to see who would act as the teacher but it was always rigged to be the real participant.
The teacher would test the learner’s ability to recall word pairs , and if they got it wrong the teacher had to administer electric shocks starting from 15 to 450 volts.

FINDINGS: 26 OF 40 participants continued to the maximum shock level of 450 volts despite this level being labelled as ‘danger : severe shock’

Question 2

Outline the 3 situational factors in obedience drawn from this study

Answer 2

Proximity - proximity of the authority figure had an affect on the obedience rates ( if they were in the room obedience was high and low if not)

Location - study was conducted at Yale , participants commented that the location felt it gave the experiment integrity

Power of the uniform - Uniforms are easily recognisable and convey power and authority