Situational Variables Affecting Obedience
- Created by: hellostudents
- Created on: 23-04-20 17:29
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- Situational variables affecting obedience
- Key study: Milgram
- Procedure: 40 PP's at a time over a series of conditions, each varying some aspect of the situation to calculate affect of obedience
- PP's told the aim was how does punishment affect learning
- Deception
- 2 confederates the experimenter and the learner
- Was rigged so PP was always the teacher
- Every time the 'learner' got a question wrong the teacher would administer an increasingly strong electric shock starting at 15 volts all the way to 450
- The learner gave mainly wrong answers
- If the teacher asked to stop at any point the experimenter gave prods encouraging the PP to continue
- The learner gave mainly wrong answers
- PP's told the aim was how does punishment affect learning
- Findings: 26 of the 40 PP's continued to the full 450 volts and all PP' went to 300 volts
- Procedure: 40 PP's at a time over a series of conditions, each varying some aspect of the situation to calculate affect of obedience
- Situational Factors in obedience
- Proximity:
- 1) Both the teacher and the learner were seated in the same room and obedience levels fell to 40%
- 2) The teacher had to force the learners hand on the shock plate obedience fell to 30%
- Proximity of the experimenter also had an effect - with the experimenter out of the room only 21% continued to 450 volts
- Location:
- The original study was conducted in the psychology lab at Yale university
- The status of the location gave the PP's confidence in the integrity of the people involved
- Milgram moved the study to a run down office and obedience rates dropped to 48%
- The original study was conducted in the psychology lab at Yale university
- The power of uniform:
- Research shows that uniform has a powerful impact on obedience as they convey power and authority
- When the experiment was not wearing a white lobe coat obedience levels dropped
- Proximity:
- Evaluation:
- Ethical issues:
- Milgram was criticised for his lack of concern for the well being of his PP's
- He had deceived his PP's as he did not reveal the true aim of the study but telling the m they were involved in a study of the effects of punishment on learning
- Made it impossible for the PP's to give their full consent
- Claimed PP's had the right to withdraw and were free to leave at any time although the prods from the experimenter made it difficult for them to do so
- He had deceived his PP's as he did not reveal the true aim of the study but telling the m they were involved in a study of the effects of punishment on learning
- Milgram was criticised for his lack of concern for the well being of his PP's
- Internal validity: Lack of realism
- Orne and Holland claimed that PP's are learning to distrust experimenters because they no the true aim maybe be disguised
- In Milgram's study study while the learner was crying out in pain the experimenter remained cool and calm leading the PP's to believe that the learner is in no real pain
- Perry found that many of the PP's in Milgram's study did doubt if the shocks were real
- Orne and Holland claimed that PP's are learning to distrust experimenters because they no the true aim maybe be disguised
- Individual Differences: Influence of gender
- Common assumption that women are more susceptible to social influence than men
- Milgram did compensate for this by having one condition in which PP's were female
- However the rate of obedience was exactly the same
- Bass studied 9 other replications of Milgram's study which has both male and female PP's and 8 out of 9 found no evidence for gender difference
- Milgram did compensate for this by having one condition in which PP's were female
- Common assumption that women are more susceptible to social influence than men
- External Validity: Obedience alibi
- Mandel claims that Milgram's conclusions about the about the situational determinants of obedience are not borne out by real life events
- Historical validity: would the same happen today
- Carried out 50 years ago
- Recent study by Burger 2009 found levels of obedience almost identical to those found by Milgram 46 years earlier
- Milgram's study still applies to today just as much as it did in the 1960s
- Ethical issues:
- Key study: Milgram
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