Milgram's studies

Created by: 11pyoung
Created on: 13-04-17 10:25

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Milgram's Studies
- Original study
  - Aim
    - To investigate how willing people were to follow the orders of an authority figure when those orders involved inflicting pain on another person
  - Procedure
    - An advert was placed in a newspaper asking for 40 male volunteers to take part in a study into how punishment affects learning
    - Forty volunteers took part in the controlled study along with 2 confederates
      - 1 confederate played the role of the experimenter and the other played the role of the 'learner'
    - Each ppt was tested separately. Ppts introduced to the second confederate and told that he was simply another ppt.
      - They drew rigged lots to see who was going to be the 'learner' and the 'teacher'
    - The ppt and were lead into a room where the learner was strapped into a chair and had electrodes attached to him.
      - The ppt was then taken to a separate room where the shock generator was situated.
        Experimenter stayed in the same room as ppt
    - The ppt was told that he must administer increasingly strong electric shocks to the learner each time they go an answer worng
    - The strength of shock on the generator ranged form 15-450 volts
      - Increasing in 15 volt increments
    - As the experiment progressed and the shocks given by the ppts got stronger the ppts heard the learner's cries of pain
      - As the shocks got stronger the confederate demanded to be released and said that his heart was 'bothering him'
        Repeated many times along with the increasingly severe cries of pain and the learner refusing to carry on
        From 315V the learner fell completely silent and was not heard again by the ppts
        None of the screams were real; pre-recorded on a tape
        
        From 315V the learner fell completely silent and was not heard again by the ppts
        None of the screams were real; pre-recorded on a tape
    - Each time the ppt wanted to leave the experimenter the 'experimenter' would prompt them to continue, ranging from a simple 'Please continue' to a demanding 'You have no choice you must go on'
  - Results
    - All ppts gave shocks up to 300V
      - 65% continued up to 450V
    - 65% continued up to 450V
  - Conclusion
    - Findings demonstrate that ordinary people are capable of committing inhumane acts when told to do so by an authority figure
  - Application
    - Milgram's research gave insight in how awful things like the holocaust could have occurred and that this insight may reduce the risk of it happening again
- Follow-up Studies
  - Telephone Instructions
    - The experiment was the same except the experimenter was not in the room but gave their instructions over the phone
    - Obedience level: 22%
  - Rundown office
    - Same experiment but conducted in a rundown office building to reduce the sense of prestige the experiment had
    - Obedience level: 48%
  - Ordinary man gives orders
    - When a confederate in the study was not perceived to be in a position of authority gave instructions whilst the experimenter was out of the room
    - Obedience level: 20%
  - Presence of allies
    - Ppts given support by 2 other teachers who refused to obey
    - Obedience level: 10%
- Evaluation
  - Highly controlled experiments
    - Highly replicable
      - All ppts subject to the same conditions in each experiment
    - All ppts subject to the same conditions in each experiment
  - High reliability
    - Similar findings obtained when experiment was repeated
  - Obedience was clearly operationalised and easy to measure
  - Low generalisability due to:
    - unrepresentative sample used
    - Unrealistic setting
  - Many serious breaches of ethical guidelines
    - Lack of informed consent
    - Deception
    - Causing psychological harm
    - Compromising the right to withdraw

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Milgram's studies

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