Milgram 1963 - Behavioural Study of Obedience - Revision Cards in A Level and IB Psychology

Milgram 1963 - Aims & Context

Obedience: A type of social influence that causes a person to act in response to a direct order from a perceived authority figure.
Adorno et al believed that the obedience required to perpetuate the holocaust was due to the German Authoritarion Personality:
- Hostility to people of lower status.
- Being servile to people of higher status.
- Upholding the norms of society and intolerance of anything different.
In August 1944, Adolf Eichmann reported that his unit had overseen the deaths of approx. 4 million Jews in death camps.
- Hannah Arendt (1963) stated: "It would have been comforting indeed to believe that Eichmann was a monster... The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him..."
- This implies that any ordinary human being could have committed such atrocities when ordered to do so.
The aim of Milgram's study was:
- To create a situation that allowed him to measure the process of obedience, even when the command requires destructive behaviour.
- To test the "Germans are different" hypothesis.

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Self selected sample of 40 males, aged 20-50 years old.
They thought they would be participating in a memory and learning test.
They were each paid $4.50, the payment didn't depend on remaining in the study.
It was a lab experiment at Yale University. Participants were greeted by 2 confederates; the experimenter and 'Mr. Wallace'.
The naive participant (NP) was always the "teacher" and the confederate was a "learner".
The learner was strapped to an electric chair type apparatus, controlled by the teacher in a separate room.
There was a shock machine with 30 switches which went up to 450V. If the learner provided a wrong answer, the teacher was ordered to shock them.
The shocks went up in incriments of 15V.
The experimenter had 4 prompts if the teacher didn't give the shock:
- "Please continue."
- "The experiment requires that you continue."
- "It is absolutely essential that you continue."
- "You have no other choice, you must go on."
The teacher was debriefed and interviewed after the experiment had ended.

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Prior To The Experiment: 14 Yale psychology students estimated the 0-3% of the participants would administer the full 450V.
At 300V, 12.5% of the participants refused to continue.
65% of participants administered the full 450V, meaning that 35% defied the experimenter.
"The participants were observed to sweat, tremble, stutter, groan, bite their lips, and dig their fingernails into their flesh."
Their behaviour indicated that they were acting against their own values.

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The circumstances of the experiment created a situation where participants found it difficult to disobey.
The location of the study provided authority.
Participants assumed the experimenter had a worthy purpose, so should be followed.
Participants assumed the learner had voluntarily consented.
Participants didn't want to disobey; they felt obligated to continue.
The payment reinforced this obligation.
Participants believed the role of the learner was determined by chance.
It was an unusual situation for the NP, so they did't know how to behave.
Participants thought the discomfort was minimal and temporary.
Participants assumed the learner was willing to continue as they "played the game".
Participants were torn between the demands; not wanting to disobey, but not wanting to cause harm. The demands weren't equally as pressing.
The participants had very little time to resolve the conflict between the demands at 300V; the conflict was between two deeply ingrained tendencies.

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Method - Lab Experiment:
- Controlled environment, so control of extraneous variables.
- Low ecological validity due to artificial setting and artificial task.
Reliability:
- Burger (2009) replicated Milgram's experiment and found similar results, suggesting that Milgram's study has high reliability.
Validity:
- Orne & Holland (1968) claimed that the experiment lacked experimental validity because the participants didn't believe the study was real, so demand characteristics took place.
- However, Milgram (1974) reported that 75% of participants thought the shocks were real.
- Low ecological validity due to the unrealistic circumstances of the experiment, so difficult to generalise results.
Sampling:
- Self selected - biased. The advert could have attracted certain types of people.
- Androcentric: Can't generalise to women.
Ethical Issues:
- Protection From Harm: Baumrind (1964) claimed that Milgram caused unjustified psychological damage, which should be weighed against the importance of the findings.
- Deception: Participants were deceived about true aims of the study.

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Burger (2009) - Supports:
- Partial replication of Milgram's study, however he didn't allow shocks past 150V even when participants showed willingness to do so.
- He found 70% of participants were willing to push the 150V button.

Hofling et al (1966) - Develops:
- In a hospital, nurses were told by a doctor, over the phone, to administer 20mg of Astroten to patients.
- 95% of nurses did so, despite the number of rules that were broken in doing so.

Rank & Jacobson (1977) - Contradicts:
- Nurses were asked, over the phone, to carry out an irregular order.
- 89% refused, stating that they were not allowed to take orders over the phone.
- However, drug used in this experiment was less "urgent" than drug used with Hofling et al.

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