Milgram's experiment, variations and evaluation (both)

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  • Milgram's research
    • 40 male Americans, voulnteer sample, were always the "teacher" in the experiment
      • were told they could leave if they wanted to, though they were told things such as "the study requires you to continue" in the experiment
      • they were to give an electric shock each time the learner got a question wrong
        • 15 volts - 450 volts (***)
          • gradual commitment
            • at 300 volts the learner stopped responding
        • they could not see the confederate, they were pretending to receive shocks and scream stop
    • findings
      • 12.5% stopped at 300 volts
      • 65% shocked up to 450 volts
      • 3 participants had seizures
      • observed extreme signs of tension
      • 14 psychology students predicted only 3% would shock to 450V
    • Evaluation
      • lab experiment
        • can control for extraneous variables
          • high in internal validity
        • artificial siutation is created
          • difficult to apply findings to real life situations
      • biased sample
        • androcentric, only used men
          • difficult to generalise to women
        • use of volunteer sample, only helpful people will have applied
          • not representative of the American population, not all have "volunteer personalities"
      • protection of participants
        • exposed to visibly stressful situations
          • potential for psychological harm
            • however, they were debriefed after and their stress levels declined
    • variations
      • proximity
        • the participant and the confederate were in the same room
          • obedience dropped to 40%
        • the participant had to force the confederates hand onto an electric shock plate
          • obedience dropped to 30%
          • "touch proximity"
      • location
        • experiment conducted in a run down building rather than Yale
          • obedience dropped to 47%
      • uniform
        • the confederate wore regular clothes rather than a lab coat
          • conformity dropped to 20%
    • evaluation of the variations
      • research support from a field experiment
        • Bickman, 3 confederates in different outfits, people more likely to obey if they looked like they have authority
          • uniform has an affect on obedience
      • control
        • Milgram controlled each factor at a time to see how they would individually affect obedience
      • lack of internal validity
        • many participants realised the experiments were fake
          • e.g replaced by a member of the public
      • generalisability
        • Miranda et al found an obedience rate of over 90% in Spanish students
          • though Milgram didn't test this himself, his results can be applied to other cultures

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