Obedience - Milgram continued.
- Created by: HLOldham
- Created on: 18-11-16 01:38
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- Obedience - Milgram (1963, 1974) continued
- Critical evaluation
- Internal validity
- Participants may not have believed that the shocks were real - Orne and Holland, 1972.
- However, stress symptoms are difficult to fake.
- Participants may not have believed that the shocks were real - Orne and Holland, 1972.
- Experimenter gave inconsistent information
- Participants were told no tissue damage would occur to the label, only that the shocks may be painful.
- But the shocks were labelled as dangerous.
- Participants were told no tissue damage would occur to the label, only that the shocks may be painful.
- Sampling was not random
- Participants were recruited from a newspaper article and got paid.
- Encourages certain types of people to volunteer.
- Participants were recruited from a newspaper article and got paid.
- Internal validity
- Reicher and Haslam (2011)
- Argued that Milgram's experiments did not show obedience.
- Is participants were obedient, they should have been more obedient the more the prod, but the opposite was the case.
- For example, Burger et al's (2009) replication of Milgram's experiment, all of the participant's stopped after the 4th prod which sounded most like an order.
- There is little evidence for the agent state, it is a reductionist construct, which only considers the relationship between the participant and experimenter, not the participant and the victim.
- Reicher and Haslam (2011) - Social Identity Explanation
- Instead of the agent state explaining the participants behaviour, Reicher and Haslam used social identity to explain the demonstrated behaviour.
- Behaviour depends on perception of shared identity with either the experimenter or victim.
- Obedience levels fall as soon as participants are encouraged to stop categorising themselves with the experimenter.
- This is because...
- Spatial arrangements, e.g. the experimenter is absent.
- The experimenter is being less prototypical of the 'science' category, e.g. the experiment being carried out in Yale rather than an office building.
- The experimenter imposing himself over the participant.
- The participant becoming more aware of the victim.
- This is because...
- Critical evaluation
- External validity
- Mandel (1998): obedience does not provide a valid explanation of what happened during the Holocaust.
- Obedience and agent state are circular concepts.
- There is no evidence for all-or-none quality and reversibility of the agent state as proposed by Milgram.
- Holocaust crimes were committed despite close proximity to the victim, minimal supervision and the possibility of and having seen others successfully refuse to participate.
- There are doubts that results could be obtained in different contexts.
- But... Milgram's results have been replicated most recently by Burger (2009).
- Burger (2009) found that 70% of participants continued beyond 150v when the learner wanted to stop (compared to 82.5% in Milgram's original experiment).
- But... Milgram's results have been replicated most recently by Burger (2009).
- Mandel (1998): obedience does not provide a valid explanation of what happened during the Holocaust.
- Ethical considerations
- Participants should have been warned that they may find the experiment stressful.
- Potential long-term mental health problems, e.g. participation in such experiments may result in low self-esteem.
- Slater (2006): recent replications of Milgram's procedure using a virtual victim could be a way to investigate obedience in the future.
- External validity
- Critical evaluation
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