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Background: Milgram was interested in OBEDIENCE. He, like other psychologists wondered how atrocities like the Holocaust (Nazi WW2) had even happened.
Key words:
IV: None
DV: Obedience (in terms of how many volts they administered)
Sampling Technique: Volunteer (gathered from a newspaper article)
Sample:
Research Method:
+= Lab exp so high control, reducing extraneous variables
-= Unethical
Sample:
+ = Sample included men from a range of occupations and educational backgrounds so was likely to be representative of the target population so findings in relation to obedience were generalisable.
+ = All were volunteers, recruited via a newspaper advert and direct mailings, so were willing to participate fully and cooperatively in the study.+ = Because American males showed ‘blind’ obedience, Milgram was able to claim that the Germans were not actually any
more obedient than anyone else in extreme/novel circumstances.
-= GENDER BIASED towards males (all men, no women), so not representative of obedience levels of women.
-= ETHNOCENTRIC as all ps from same area of America, so can’t generalise to the rest of the population.
Type of data:
+ = Quant data- easy to compare levels of obedience.
- = No qual data about the reasons why the ps was/wasn't obedient.
- = Qual data on descriptions of ps behaviour hard to compare .
Reliability:
+ = Standardised procedure (all ps went through the same thing, e.g same prods by the experimenter)
+ = Quant data- easy to compare
Validity:
+ = Everything seemed real- the 45V shock, the generator, so the ps would have acted truthfully.
+ = Explains extreme levels of obedience
- = Gender bias, all ps males, doesn't measure obedience in women.
- = Some ps may have realised the aim/exp not real-DCs
- = Ethnocentric- cannot generalise to broader population
- = Low ecol valid- artificial setting, doesn't have mundane realism. In real life people wouldn't be asked to electrocute another person, so the results cannot be generalised.
Usefulness:
+= Shows ordinary people are affected by an authority figure
+ = Shows situation were in influences our behaviour- raises awareness, helps us understand how the Holocaust was possible.
-= Low ecol validity and low generalisability mean the findings are not useful in replicating obedience in real life situations.
Ethical Issues:
+= DEBRIEFED the ps after the study
- = DECIEVED at the start of the study as they were told a COVER STORY (that the exp was about learning and punishment)
- = Cannot guarantee the ps left the exp in the way they had entered it
- = Not made clear that the ps had R to W- experimenter constantly gave prods and ps felt obliged to continue (paid $4.50)
- = Didn't get informed consent to be observed
- = DISTRESS- belief that they were really giving shocks may have caused the ps mental harm
Improvements & Implications:
1) Sample:
Increase the sample size to 100 and include women. Advertise for male and female volunteers to take part in a study on memory. Randomly select 50 males and 50 females to take part from the responses.
Conduct a field experiment on ps where their parents are confederates and know the purpose of the study. Their parents would be standing outside a shop and say they need some bread but cant afford it. They would tell their child to steal some bread from the shop. The shop would have been informed about the study, gave permission for it to take place and paid in advance for the bread that would be taken. If they stole the bread without Q, they would be considered obedient. If they stole the bread with reluctance they were semi- obedient. If they refused to teal the bread they would be disobedient (and a good, moral citizen :) ).
Key words:
- Agency theory= someone looks up to an AUTHORITY FIGURE and they become their agents, doing what they say.
- Blind obedience= when someone doesn't REALISE how obedient they are being.
- Gradual commitment= people don't realise they are committing to the task as they are gradually doing it.
- Mundane realism= situation is boring, ordinary, not unusual (Milgram's study didn't have this).
- Confederate= people who know what the experiment is about. (e.g Student and experimenter)
- all GERMANS are EVIL
- SITUATION affects our behaviour (we have the capability of being evil)
- **To investigate whether ps would show obedience to an authority figure who told them to administer electric shocks to another person.
- To investigate the process of obedience, to demonstrate the POWER of a legitimate authority even when the command requires destructive behaviour.
IV: None
DV: Obedience (in terms of how many volts they administered)
Sampling Technique: Volunteer (gathered from a newspaper article)
Sample:
- 40 males
- Between age 20<50 years
- Range of occupations and backgrounds/middle class, mainly white
- From New Haven, USA
- 2 rooms at Yale Uni
- Contained a legitimate looking electric-shock generator (had a row of switches from 15V --> 450V, going up in increments of 15V, The shocks had descriptions- ranging from slight shock to XXX).
- Contained a chair wit restraining straps where the learner was to receive the shocks via their wrist. It had a tape recording of standardised responses that were played in the same order for each ps.
- Experimenter- 31 yr old, 'stern' Biology teacher, wore a grey lab tech coat.
- Learner- 47 yr old, accountant, appeared mild-mannered and likable.
- The ps was told a cover story that the study was the effects of punishment on learning.
- The ps was always the teacher.
- The ps saw the learner get taken to another room, strapped in a chair and their wrists attached to the equipment that would deliver the shocks.
- The experimenter said that: 'although the shocks may be extremely painful, they caused no permanent tissue damage' as the learner said they had a mild heart condition.
- The teacher and experimenter returned to the previous room. The teacher sat in front of the shock generator.
- The teacher was informed the learner had to learn word pairs, like 'nice day'.
- The teacher was given a 'test shock' to add to the authenticity of the study and to make the teacher believe te learner was really being given shocks.
- The teacher had to read out the 1st word of the word pair and 4 possible words (1 was the word pair). The learner would indicate their answer y pressing 1 of 4 switches in front of them, which lit up the corresponding light on the shock generator.
- Each time the learner got an answer wrong or didn't answer, the teacher was told to administer a shock to the learner by flicking a switch on the generator. Each time the learner got a Q wrong, the teacher was told to increase the shocks by moving onto a higher shock indicated on the generator.
- The only response from the learner through the answer box was the predetermined set of answers that implied the learner was taking part in the exp.
- At 300V and 315V, the learner pounded on the wall and no answer came through the answer box. This left the teacher to believe the learner may be unconscious or even dead.
- If the teacher protested that they didn't want to continue, the experimenter instructed them to continue using standardised prods:
- The experiment requires you to continue.
- It is absolutely essential that you continue.
- You have no other choice, you must go on.
- Please continue/please go on.
- If the ps disobeyed all 4 prods, the experiment ended, unless the ps went to the max 450V.
- If the ps asked about the welfare of the learner the experimenter used these prods:
- Although the shocks will be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go on.
- Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has learnt all the words correctly.
- At the end of the study, the teacher was reunited with the learner, assured that no shocks had been given, and was thoroughly debriefed about the true nature and purpose of the study. Milgram interviewed all ps using open-ended Qs, projective measures (tests to see if any long term consequences had resulted from taking part in the study) and altitude scales to ensure (as much as possible) that the ps left the lab 'in a state of well-being'.
- All 40 ps (100%) gave shocks up to at least 300V (where the student pounded on the wall and no longer answered any Q).
- 26/40 ps (65%) went all the way to 450V (so considered obedient).
- 14 ps stopped prior to 450V (so considered disobedient).
- Many ps showed signs of nervousness. Ps were observed to sweat, tremble, stutter, bit their lips, groan and dig their fingernails into their flesh.
- One sign of tension was the regular occurrence of nervous laughing fits.
- Full blown uncontrollable seizures were observed for 3 ps, in one case so violent that the study had to be stopped.
- Obedience levels were surprisingly high as it was predicted that they would be low.
- Extreme sins of tension were surprising a it was expected that the ps would stop as their conscience dictated.
- Milgram concludes that obedience can be brought out in anyone under the right situational conditions (situation has the power to override a persons conscience and what is thought to be moral in the name of obedience).
- Ps assumed the experimenter knew what he was doing, so his instructions should be followed.
- Ps believed the learner had also voluntarily consented to take part so the situation was ‘fair’.
- The ps did not want to disrupt the experiment as he felt under obligation to the experimenter due to his voluntary consent to participate.
- The ps sense of obligation was reinforced because he had been paid to take part.
- Ps believed the role of the learner was determined by chance, so roles could easily have been reversed.
- It was a novel situation for the ps who therefore had no previous experience on which to base his behaviour.
- The ps was told the shocks were not harmful and that the scientific gains were important.
- There was no obvious point at which ps could stop administering electric shocks because each shock was only a small amount more than the previous one, so they continued.
- The location of the study at a prestigious university (Yale) provided authority.
Research Method:
+= Lab exp so high control, reducing extraneous variables
-= Unethical
Sample:
+ = Sample included men from a range of occupations and educational backgrounds so was likely to be representative of the target population so findings in relation to obedience were generalisable.
+ = All were volunteers, recruited via a newspaper advert and direct mailings, so were willing to participate fully and cooperatively in the study.+ = Because American males showed ‘blind’ obedience, Milgram was able to claim that the Germans were not actually any
more obedient than anyone else in extreme/novel circumstances.
-= GENDER BIASED towards males (all men, no women), so not representative of obedience levels of women.
-= ETHNOCENTRIC as all ps from same area of America, so can’t generalise to the rest of the population.
Type of data:
+ = Quant data- easy to compare levels of obedience.
- = No qual data about the reasons why the ps was/wasn't obedient.
- = Qual data on descriptions of ps behaviour hard to compare .
Reliability:
+ = Standardised procedure (all ps went through the same thing, e.g same prods by the experimenter)
+ = Quant data- easy to compare
Validity:
+ = Everything seemed real- the 45V shock, the generator, so the ps would have acted truthfully.
+ = Explains extreme levels of obedience
- = Gender bias, all ps males, doesn't measure obedience in women.
- = Some ps may have realised the aim/exp not real-DCs
- = Ethnocentric- cannot generalise to broader population
- = Low ecol valid- artificial setting, doesn't have mundane realism. In real life people wouldn't be asked to electrocute another person, so the results cannot be generalised.
Usefulness:
+= Shows ordinary people are affected by an authority figure
+ = Shows situation were in influences our behaviour- raises awareness, helps us understand how the Holocaust was possible.
-= Low ecol validity and low generalisability mean the findings are not useful in replicating obedience in real life situations.
Ethical Issues:
+= DEBRIEFED the ps after the study
- = DECIEVED at the start of the study as they were told a COVER STORY (that the exp was about learning and punishment)
- = Cannot guarantee the ps left the exp in the way they had entered it
- = Not made clear that the ps had R to W- experimenter constantly gave prods and ps felt obliged to continue (paid $4.50)
- = Didn't get informed consent to be observed
- = DISTRESS- belief that they were really giving shocks may have caused the ps mental harm
Improvements & Implications:
1) Sample:
Increase the sample size to 100 and include women. Advertise for male and female volunteers to take part in a study on memory. Randomly select 50 males and 50 females to take part from the responses.
- + = Increased reliability as the sample is larger and not gender biased, so is more representative of the target population, therefore the results are more generalisable.
- + = Volunteer sample is a cheap and easy sampling technique with a high response rate.
- - = More difficult to obtain a larger sample with the appropriate no of people.
- - = Ps all volunteers so have similar characteristics that will not be representative of all types of people in the target population.
Conduct a field experiment on ps where their parents are confederates and know the purpose of the study. Their parents would be standing outside a shop and say they need some bread but cant afford it. They would tell their child to steal some bread from the shop. The shop would have been informed about the study, gave permission for it to take place and paid in advance for the bread that would be taken. If they stole the bread without Q, they would be considered obedient. If they stole the bread with reluctance they were semi- obedient. If they refused to teal the bread they would be disobedient (and a good, moral citizen :) ).
- + = As the study will take place in real life that has less extreme acts (more mundane); it will have higher ecol validity and reflect real life circumstances better.
- - = There may be DCs if the child realises the aim.
- - = The children who do steal the bread may go on to commit more serious crimes as a result and become a regular stealer, since their parent had let them before.
- - = It will be hard to get volunteers where their children will not be surprised by their parents request- so more DCs will result if the child realises the aim (which is more possible if their parents request is clearly out of character and they do not have money worries).