Milgram's Obedience study notes (Core studies)

Kat McManus

Background: Milgram was interested in OBEDIENCE. He, like other psychologists
wondered how atrocities like the Holocaust (Nazi WW2) had even happened.

Aim:

**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…

Kat McManus

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…

Kat McManus

Conclusions:

Obedience levels were surprisingly high as it was predicted that they would
be low.
Extreme signs 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…

Kat McManus

= 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…

Kat McManus

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…