Milgram: A study of Obedience

Obedience = The compliance with an order, request, or instruction given by an authority figure

The case of the Nazis in World War Two showed how a significant amount of people could be driven to carry out unlawful acts as a result of their obedience to their leader.

When given extreme command by legitimate authority figures, subordinates adopt an agentic state (a state of mind in which a person will allow other people to direct their behaviours and pass responsibility for the consequences of the behaviours to the person telling them what to do)

Controlled observsation (even though Milgram refers to it as an experiment) as there is no independent variable

Prior to the study,  14 Yale University seniors (psychology majors) estimated the percentage of participants who would administer the highest level of shock. They estimated that 1-3% of participants would be obedient

40 male participants (aged 20 - 50 years) from the New Haven area

They were recruited through a newspaper advertisement asking for volunteers for an experiement (self-selected sample)

They were paid $4.50 for simply just arriving at the lab (they got to keep the money whether they took part in the experiment of not)

Took place in a laboratory at Yale University

Participants were told the study was about 'how punishment effected learning'

The participants were ALWAYS given the role of 'teacher', whilst Mr Wallace (the victim) was ALWAYS given the role of 'learner' - fixed lottery

The participants saw the victim strapped in chair, with (non-active) electrodes attached to his arm and gave a trial shock of 40 volts to stimulate genuineness

The participants sat in front of an electric shock generator in the adjacent room (couldn’t see the victim). The participants had to conduct a paired word test with the learner and give him an electric shock of increasing intensity for every wrong answer

A set of predetermined responses were produced (approximately 3 wrong answers to every correct answer). Pre-recorded screams were played when the shocks were given. At 300 volts the learner pounded the wall and made no further sound.

If the participant turned to the experimenter for advice on what to do or want to stop theh study,  the experimenter responded with a series of prods ‘please continue’, ‘please go on’. The experimenter had to have given 4 prods before the participant could stop the experiment.

The study finished when either the ‘teacher’ refused to continue (disobeyed) or reached 450 volts (obeyed)

The participant was then fully debriefed

Data gathered through observations (experimenter in the room with p’s and observers through a one-way mirror). Most sessions recorded on magnetic tape, occasional photographs taken and notes on unusual behaviour

Quantitative Data:

All participants continued to 300 volts

25 participants were obedient (continued to 450 volts), 14 were disobedient (stopped the study)

Qualitative Data:

Many participants showed signs of extreme stress whilst administering shocks (e.g. sweating, trembling, stuttering)

3 participants had full-blown uncontrollable seizures

Milgram offered 13 possible explanations for the high levels of obedience…

• The study carried out in a prestigious university

• Participants were told the shocks were not harmful

• They didn't have any past experience to guide their behaviour

• They were paid money before completing the study (if they didn't complete the study and they left with the money they might have felt guilty)

Inhumane acts can be done by ordinary people, due to being in an agentic state

People will obey others whom they consider legitimate authority figures, even if what they are asked to fo goes against their moral beliefs

Stengths:

Collected both qualitative and quantitative data - valid conclusions can be made about obedience (detail to go with the stats) - an explanation

High internal reliabilty - consistency of procedures, materials, people involved...

High external reliabilty - this study has been replicated many times (found similar obediecnce levels)

Weaknesses:

Atypical sample - all men (not representative of the general population, therefore, hard to generalise)

Self-selcted sample - increased the likelihood of an unrepresentative sample

Ethnocentric - only conducted in America

Extremely unethical - harm, deception